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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS 



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ABRIDGED BY, 



EDWIN GINN 




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FROM EDITION OP CHARLES SAYLE 



WITH LIFE 



M. F. WHEATON 



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BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN & COMPANY 

1893 



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Copyright, 1893, 
By GINN & COMPANY. 



All Rights Reserved. 



<3fnn & Company 

£be Btbenarum iprcss 

Boston 



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LIFE OF LOBD CHESTEKFIELD, 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 



TDHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, fourth earl of 
Chesterfield, was born in the year 1694 and died 
in 1773. His life, therefore, extended through the first 
three quarters of the eighteenth century which were made 
eventful in English history by the establishment of the 
House of Brunswick upon the throne, by the develop- 
ment of Constitutional law, and by the rise of great 
ministers as leaders of the two political parties. 

Lord Chesterfield was interested in all the public ques- 
tions of the day. He was a faithful servant of the crown 
at home and in Ireland, and showed himself an accomp- 
lished diplomat on several missions to foreign countries. 
He was a man of scholarly tastes, of large attainments, of 
refined and elegant manners in an age when English 
society was remarkable for its lack of good breeding, 
and of scrupulous exactness in the performance of all 
obligations. 

On the other hand and what seems oftener remembered 
of him, he was, in spite of these excellent qualities, in his 
political methods, a schemer and an intriguer; while in 
social life, his character is stained by vices in which he 
indulged to an extent that rendered him conspicuous 
among his worldly contemporaries, even in that age, when 
the standard of morals was much lower than at present. 

His defects have been considered to outweigh his virt- 
ues so completely that his name would have long since 



VI LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

fallen into oblivion, if it had not been for the series of 
letters addressed to his son, selections from which form 
the present volume. They cover a period of about thirty 
years, beginning with the first playful letters to a child of 
five years and continuing on steadily and with great fre- 
quency, to the death of the son at the age of thirty-six. 

They were prompted by fatherly affection and anxiety 
and they were written in the strict privacy of domestic 
life, entirely without thought of public praise or censure. 
It never occurred to him that the letters in which he lived 
over again his own boyhood and youth with his child, 
from whom he was separated most of the time, would be 
given to the public and become a part of the standard 
English literature of his century. At that time the death 
of a great man was not inevitably followed by a volume 
of his letters as is the custom now. Chesterfield had no 
reason to anticipate such publicity. They were first pub- 
lished by his son's widow in 1774, a year after the death 
of the writer, as a financial speculation. 

This remarkable collection deals with almost every 
department of knowledge except nature and religion. Of 
religion he writes to his son, " I don't speak of religion, I 
am not in a position to do so, — the excellent Mr. Harte 
(the boy's tutor) will do that." But no other subject, 
which he thinks may be of assistance to the child whom 
he intends to fit for a diplomatic career, escaped comment 
and amplification in these familiar letters. 

They are a frank expression of his nature. However 
he might have plotted and studied effects and appear- 
ances in his other undertakings, in these letters he is, at 
least, genuine. They reveal him at his best, but the 



LORD CHESTERFIELD, Vll 

worldliness that corrupted his own better nature taints 
the sound wisdom and excellent advice; wisdom and 
advice that would otherwise be of great value from a man 
of the experience and judgment that Chesterfield had. 
His illustrious contemporary, the great Dr. Johnson, who, 
for reasons of his own, would have no special inclination 
to overestimate the value of these letters, said of them, 
" Take out the immorality and they should be put into 
the hands of every young gentleman." The world has 
since seen no reason to differ with the opinion of the 
worthy doctor. 

To enter into the spirit of the letters, one must remem- 
ber their individual and not general purpose. They were 
for young Philip Stanhope and no other person. He was 
a boy who early showed excellent mental powers; but 
who, as he grew older, did not develop the easy, graceful 
bearing which his father so much desired for him and 
which is always an important adjunct to a successful 
career as an envoy to foreign governments where great 
address and tact are required to adjust delicate inter- 
national questions. The father early set before the son, 
in its two branches, learning and deportment, the educa- 
tion he wished him to gain and, under the circumstances, 
he can hardly be blamed if he harps continually on his 
second string which he playfully calls " the Graces." He 
writes, "The Graces! The Graces! Remember the Graces! 
I would have you sacrifice to the Graces! " His son lacked 
fine manners and when in time that fact became undeni- 
ably apparent, he directs the larger part of his attention 
to the subject. It is for that reason that cultivation of 
manners seems to be dwelt upon with undue emphasis. 



Vlll LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

The immorality complained of in the letters is not so 
much the fault of Lord Chesterfield as it is the fault of 
the age in which he lived. While instinctively he shrinks 
from the coarse pleasures of the times, he yet became a 
victim to several, such as gambling, because he thought 
such indulgences essential to the character of a fine 
gentleman. It was his misfortune to value too highly 
the standards of the fashionable world of which he was a 
member, — standards opposed to the natural promptings 
of his own better nature. Coarseness and vulgarity, 
whether in dress, deportment, or language, was naturally 
abhorrent to him. Everything, therefore, which he has 
to say to his son upon mental training and good manners 
is still excellent counsel for any young person, while the 
charming style, in which the thoughts are expressed, 
makes them a model of easy, graceful English prose. 

As a representative of the eighteenth century, it is not 
fair to judge Lord Chesterfield apart from his age. But 
in this short review there is not space enough to do more 
than suggest a few of the evils which then existed, to 
show what the spirit of the times was. 

The singular indifference to human suffering is seen in 
the severity of the laws. There were more than two 
hundred crimes on the Statute Books which were punish- 
able by death. Upon Temple Bar, the quaint old arch- 
way which marked the dividing line between the busy 
street, called The Strand, and Fleet Street, in the heart 
of London, was, usually, a ghastly row of heads exposed 
to view as a warning to offenders. The streets of the 
city, the high roads of the country were infested with 
robbers. The prisons were full of criminals and that still 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. IX 

more unfortunate class, the poor debtors. That strange 
phase of depravity, known as the " Fleet Marriages," 
trifled with that sacred rite. The poor people were more 
crowded and miserable in their wretched quarters than 
to-day and through their midst stalked the appalling 
specter, the smallpox, which invaded the homes of the 
rich almost as often as it did those of the poor. 

In the country, the condition of affairs was not much 
better. It was before the great era of steam and none of 
the large manufacturing towns yet existed which could 
absorb and employ the rural population. Nor were the 
agricultural industries of the country sufficiently produc- 
tive for their needs. The rude and crowded masses of 
the coal mining districts were in a still more pitiable con- 
dition. The manufacture and sale of gin, which had 
become one of the most important industries of the 
country since it was introduced from Holland under Wil- 
liam and Mary, still further increased the wide-spread 
misery. 

Turning from the people in general to the more favored 
classes, life offers subjects for contemplation that are not 
more pleasing. The letters of distinguished people such 
as Chesterfield, Walpole and Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
tagu, the novels and the drama, all reflect the frivolity, 1 
the selfishness, the hardness, and the coarseness (to which 
allusion has already been made) of a superficial age. 

During this period, indifferent as it seemed toward 
human needs, great forces were already declaring them- 
selves which were soon to ameliorate the condition of the 

1 Just as the average daily paper caters to the vulgarity of our own 
age. 



X LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

people; and none of them was more remarkable than the 
great religious movement under the Wesleys and White- 
field. Little as some may be inclined to sympathize with 
the methods of these indefatigable workers, it would be 
almost impossible to over-estimate the good they accom- 
plished in uplifting the degraded masses of the smaller 
towns and rural districts of England. 

Lord Chesterfield listened to the dramatic eloquence of 
the great preacher, Whitefielcl, on one occasion at least, 
and was profoundly impressed with his great gifts; but 
there is no evidence that he took any practical interest in 
this or any other purely humanitarian movement of the day. 

His life was very much like that of other men of his 
rank and condition. His mother died in his infancy, while 
his father, a fashionable nonentity of the day who seemed 
to entertain no affection for the son, perhaps because he 
was incapable of any such sentiment, left him to grow up 
in the house of his maternal grandmother, the Marchioness 
of Halifax. Here he met distinguished company and 
early developed an aptitude for study. In due time he 
spent two years in Cambridge at Trinity College where he 
seems to have covered a wide field of reading. His 
method of studying Greek would delight a modern stu- 
dent. He writes of this subject, — "I read Lucian and 
Xenophon in Greek which is made easy to me; for I do 
not take pains to learn the grammatical rules; but the 
gentleman who is with me, and who is a living grammar, 
teaches me them as I go along." 

From Cambridge he went on to the continent and spent 
two years traveling about alone instead of with the con- 
ventional tutor. A good part of the time, he spent at The 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. XI 

Hague and in Paris where lie acquired that admiration for 
French life and manners which he never ceased to enter- 
tain. His rank gave him the entrance into court life of 
the French capital. It was the corrupt and polished court 
of the weak and vicious Louis XV., a dangerous school in 
which to train ambitious youth. 

He was recalled to England by the death of Queen 
Anne and took an active part in placing the German 
prince George of Hanover on the throne as King George 
the First of England. It was about this time, he was 
made a member of the House of Commons. Shortly after 
his admission, he made an eloquent speech on some ques- 
tion before the house, but learned, to his chagrin, that he 
had made himself liable to a fine of <£500 x ($2,500) for 
speaking before he was of age. Indignant with himself, 
he hastened again to the continent and spent the time of 
waiting for his majority in Paris and The Hague where, it 
is said, he made himself useful as an informer to the home 
government about the Jacobites who were continually plot- 
ting in those cities to restore the banished house of Stewart 
to the English throne. 

On his return he held several posts of honor and impor- 
tance under the king and made himself famous as an ora- 
tor. Walpole said, — " That the finest speech he had 
ever listened to was one from Lord Chesterfield." In the 
dishonorable quarrels that arose between George I. and his 
son, afterwards George II.; and in turn, between George 
II. and his heir, Chesterfield was in each case opposed to 
the sovereign. His fortunes suffered to some extent from 
these politico-domestic complications, yet he succeeded 
1 £500 equivalent to much more than $2,500 then. 



Xll LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

in obtaining some of the high honors he coveted. He was 
twice made Ambassador to The Hague, where he performed 
his important missions with great skill; and he was, for a 
short term of office, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. 

His administration of Irish affairs was the most brilliant, 
the most successful effort of his life. Lord Mahon, his 
biographer, says he is assured that his name lives in the 
honored remembrance of the Irish people as perhaps next 
to Ormond, the best and worthiest in their long viceregal 
line. He held the post four years. The last public office 
Avhich he filled was that of Secretary of State. But owing 
to his differences with the king, his freedom and useful- 
ness were hampered so much that he was glad to retire 
from active life in 1748, after holding the position two 
years. He continued, however, for some years to appear 
in the House of Lords to which body he had been raised 
by the death of his father in 1726, and to which he had 
given the celebrated sobriquet, the " Hospital for Incura- 
bles." He would have much preferred to remain in the 
more active and more able House of Commons, could he 
have done so. 

In these latter years in the House, he rendered an 
important service to the country, in his strenuous efforts 
to have the calendar corrected. All the other countries 
of Western Europe had accepted the Gregorian calendar 
except England; which calendar advanced the date of the 
month, eleven days. This difference of time caused great 
inconvenience to the foreign commerce of the country, 
but still the people were very reluctant to accept the 
innovation. It was chiefly through Lord Chesterfield's 
efforts, that the desirable change was brought about. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. Xlll 

Now, in accordance with what was called for convenience 
the new style of reckoning or simply " N. S.," Washing- 
ton's birthday falls on the 22d of February, instead of the 
11th, according to the old style or " O. S." And the 
great Columbian celebrations are held or would naturally 
be held on the 23d of October, instead of on the 12th of 
October, which the histories give for the date of the dis- 
covery of America. The four hundredth anniversary fall- 
ing upon Sunday, it has been agreed to hold the celebra- 
tions on Friday, the 21st, as a more convenient time than 
either the Saturday preceding or the Monday succeeding 
that date. 

Lord Chesterfield continued to withdraw more and 
more from the world as deafness and other infirmities 
increased upon him. His career had been brilliant, but 
hardly satisfying to his ambition. For every triumph he 
suffered a defeat and he was constantly checkmated by his 
tendency to take the opposition; while his literary clever- 
ness, both in speech and with his pen, betrayed him into 
indiscretions for w^hich he often paid the penalty, by the 
loss of advancement. It is probable, too, that he sometimes 
failed where a more honest or certainly a more straight- 
forward policy would have succeeded. He had studied 
too long the French school of statesmanship to believe 
in any other system than the one of intrigue and deception 
which had so long prevailed at the French Court. 

His literary remains form a substantial collection, but 
their highly elaborated style is wearisome. They consist, 
principally, of speeches which he prepared for various 
occasions; and, though they then awakened loud applause, 
they are pretty much forgotten now. 



XIV LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

He might have won distinction for himself as a patron 
of letters and literary men (an important office in that 
century), had he extended a friendly hand to haughty 
old Samuel Johnson struggling along with his afterwards 
famous dictionary. He ignored the literary man seeking 
assistance in his cold anti-chamber. Dr. Johnson waited 
in vain for a word of encouragement and afterwards 
avenged himself in effective satire. The well-known 
line in his poem, " The Vanity of Human Wishes," 

" Toil, envy, want, the patron or the jail." 

was no doubt suggested by the recollection of those hours 
lost in his lordship's waiting room. 

His only claim to literary fame rests now upon the 
letters to his soil of which enough has been said. In his 
son he hoped to see realized all the ambitious dreams in 
which he felt himself disappointed. But the young man 
never showed either the address or the ability of his 
father. Falling early into ill-health, he appeared but 
little in the world and then to small advantage. If Lord 
Chesterfield felt regret at this> he did not say so. He had 
done his best to shape an ideal character according to his 
standard and if he failed, it was not his first experience of 
failure. He bore this disappointment as he took all the 
other events of his life, with, apparently, unruffled 
serenity. 

The last twenty years of his life passed quietly. His 
extreme deafness cut him off from much social enjoy- 
ment, as well as from his public life. Reading and study 
became again his solace and delight as they had been in 
his younger days. Correspondence with distinguished 



LOED CHESTERFIELD. XV 

men, as well as with his beloved son, occupied his leisure 
moments. In his earlier years he had been the friend and 
patron of the brilliant French writer, Voltaire, yhom he 
helped to make famous. Now both men, grown feeble 
and weary of "this silly" world w^liich, with all its 
bountiful gifts to them, they found unsatisfying, wrote to 
each other, long letters; the one from his retirement m 
Switzerland, the other in England. 

To Lord Chesterfield, are attributed many phrases and 
epigrams that have become familiar in our English speech. 
" Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well," 
— " Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care 
of themselves," — " Style is the dress of thoughts," — 
" Despatch is the soul of business," — " A chapter of acci- 
dents," were of his authorship. 

He died, as has been said, ^i the year 1773 when 
George III., who exercised sdMftmentous an influence 
upon American affairs by rousing the English colonists 
to rebellion and separation, had been seated thirteen years 
upon the throne. It is pleasant to learn that in this 
great struggle between the countries, Lord Chesterfield's 
sympathy was on the side of the Americans. His influ- 
ence was exercised in favor of the repeal of the Stamp 
Act which the English colonists in America found so 
oppressive. In a letter to his son dated December 27, 
1765, he said, in reference to the forcible collection of the 
duty, — "I would not have the mother-country become a 
stepmother." The more liberal policy advocated by the 
statesmen of broader views than those held by the head- 
strong king and his favorite advisers was overborne by 
the rash monarch, but not without many spirited protests 



XVI LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

from his opponents. Chesterfield did not live to see the 
final result of the long series of heated Parliamentary 
debates on the right of England to tax her colonies with- 
out allowing them a representative in the legislative 
body. He had been dead three years, when the " em- 
battled farmers stood " on Concord bridge and fired the 
famous shot heard round the world. His sympathy, had 
he lived, would have still been with the brave men who 
dared resist tyranny and wrong. His influence through- 
out his life had been thrown on the liberal and progres- 
sive side of the great public questions of the times. 

M. F. WHEATOK 
Boston, October 20, 1892. 




LORD CHESTERFIELDS LETTERS. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 



LETTER I. 

DEAR BOY, Tunbridge, July the 15th, 1739. 

I thank you for your .concern about my health; 
which I would have given you an account of sooner, but 
that writing does not agree with these waters. I am bet- 
ter since I have been here; and shall therefore stay a 
month longer. 

Signor Zamboni compliments me, through you, much 
more than I deserve; but pray do you take care to deserve 
what he says of you; and remember, that praise, when it 
is not deserved, is the severest satire and abuse; and the 
most effectual way of exposing people's vices and follies. 
This is a figure of speech called Irony; which is saying 
directly the contrary of what you mean; but yet it is not 
a lie, because you plainly show, that you mean directly the 
contrary of what you say; so that you deceive nobody. 
For example : if one were to compliment a notorious knave 
for his singular honesty and probity, and an eminent fool 
for his wit and parts, the irony is plain, and everybody 
would discover the satire. Or, suppose that I were to 
commend you for your great attention to your book, and 
for your retaining and remembering what you have once 
learned; would not you plainly perceive the irony, and 
see that I laughed at you ? Therefore, whenever you are 



Z LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

commended for anything, consider fairly, with yourself, 
whether you deserve it or not; and if you do not deserve 
it, remember that you are only abused and laughed at; and 
endeavor to deserve better for the future, and to prevent 
the irony. Adieu. 



LETTEE II. 



DEAR BOY, November the 20th, 1739. 

As you are now reading the Roman History, I hope 
you do it with that care and attention which it deserves. 
The utility of History consists principally in the examples 
it gives us of the virtues and vices of those who have gone 
before us : upon which we ought to make the proper 
observations. History animates and excites us to the love 
and the practice of virtue; by showing us the regard and 
veneration that was always paid to great and virtuous men, 
in the times in which they lived, and the praise and glory 
with which their names are perpetuated, and transmitted 
down to our times. The Roman History furnishes more 
examples of virtue and magnanimity, or greatness of mind, 
than any other. It was a common thing to see their Con- 
suls and Dictators (who, you know, were their chief Mag- 
istrates) taken from the plough, to lead their armies 
against their enemies; and, after victory, returning to 
their plough again, and passing the rest of their lives in 
modest retirement: a retirement more glorious, if possible. 
than the victories that preceded it! Many of their greatest 
men died so poor, that they were buried at the expense of 
the public. Curms, who had no money of his own, refused 
a great sum that the Samnites offered, saying, that he saw 






LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 3 

no glory in having money himself, but in commanding 
those that had. And Fabricius, who had often commanded 
the Roman armies, and as often triumphed over their 
enemies, was found by his fireside, eating those roots and 
herbs which he had planted and cultivated himself in his 
own field. Scipio, after a victory he had obtained in 
Spain, found among the prisoners a young princess of 
extreme beauty, who, he was informed, was soon to have 
been married to a man of quality of that country. He 
ordered her to be entertained and attended with the same 
care and respect, as if she had been in her father's house; 
and, as soon as he could find her lover, he gave her to him, 
and added to her portion the money that her father had 
brought for her ransom. This was a most glorious exam- 
ple of moderation, continence, and generosity, which 
gained him the hearts of all the people of Spain. 

Such are the rewards that always crown virtue; and 
such the characters that you should imitate, if you would 
be a great and a good man, which is the only way to be a 
happy one! Adieu. 



LETTEE III. 
Dear Boy, 

I sexd you here a few more Latin roots, though I am 
not sure that you will like my roots so well as those that 
grow in your garden; however, if you will attend to them, 
they may save you a great deal of trouble. These few 
will naturally point out many others to your own observa- 
tion; and enable you, by comparison, to find out most 
derived and compound words, when once you know the 



4 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

original root of them. You are old enough now to make 
observations upon what you learn; which, if you would be 
pleased to do, you cannot imagine how much time and 
trouble it would save you. Remember, you are now very 
near nine years old; an age at which all boys ought to 
know a great deal, but you, particularly, a great deal more, 
considering the care and pains that have been employed 
about you; and if you do not answer those expectations, 
you will lose your character; which is the most mortifying 
thing that can happen to a generous mind. Everybody 
has ambition, of some kind or other, and is vexed when 
that ambition is disappointed: the difference is, that the 
ambition of silly people is a silly and mistaken ambition; 
and the ambition of people of sense is a right and com- 
mendable one. For instance; the ambition of a silly boy, 
of your age, would be to have fine clothes, and money to 
throw away in idle follies; which, you plainly see, would 
be no proofs of merit in him, but only of folly in his par- 
ents, in dressing him out like a jackanapes, and giving him 
money to play the fool with. Whereas a boy of good 
sense places his ambition in excelling other boys of his 
own age, and even older, in virtue and knowledge. His 
glory is in being known always to speak the truth, in 
showing good-nature and compassion, in learning quicker, 
and applying himself more than other boys. These are 
real proofs of merit in him, and consequently proper 
objects of ambition; and will acquire him a solid reputa- 
tion and character. This holds true in men, as well as in 
boys: the ambition of a silly fellow will be, to have a line 
equipage, a fine house, and line clothes: things which any- 
body, that has as much money, may have as well as he: 



LOED CHESTEKFIELD'S LETTERS. 5 

for they are all to be bought : but the ambition of a man 
of sense and honor is, to be distinguished by a character 
and reputation of knowledge, truth, and virtue; things 
which are not to be bought, and that can only be acquired 
by a good head and a good heart. Such was the ambition 
of the Lacedaemonians and the Romans, when they made 
the greatest figure ; and such, I hope, yours will always 
be. Adieu. 



LETTER IV. 

DEAR BOY, Wednesday. 

You behaved yourself so well at Mr. Boden's, last Sun- 
day, that you justly deserve commendation : besides, you 
encourage me to give you some rules of politeness and 
good breeding, being persuaded that you will observe them. 
Know % then, that as learning, honor, and virtue are abso- 
lutely necessary to gain you the esteem and admiration of 
mankind ; politeness and good breeding are equally neces- 
sary to make you welcome and agreeable in conversation 
and common life. Great talents, such as honor, virtue, 
learning, and parts, are above the generality of the world, 
who neither possess them themselves, nor judge of them 
rightly in others : but all people are judges of the lesser 
talents, such as civility, affability, and an obliging, agree- 
able address and manner ; because they feel the good effects 
of them, as making society easy and pleasing. Good sense 
must, in many cases, determine good breeding; because 
the same thing that would be civil at one time, and to one 
person, may be quite otherwise at another time, and to 
another person ; but there are some general rules of good 



6 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

breeding, that hold always true, and in all cases. As, for 
example, it is always extremely rude to answer only Yes, 
or No, to anybody, without adding, Sir, my Lord, or 
Madam, according to the quality of the person you speak 
to ; as, in French, you must always say, Monsieur, Milord, 
Madame, and Mademoiselle. I suppose you know that 
every married woman is, in French, Madame, and every 
unmarried one is Mademoiselle. It is likewise extremely 
rude not to give the proper attention, and a civil answer, 
when people speak to you ; or to go away, or be doing 
something else, while they are speaking to you ; for that 
convinces them that you despise them, and do not think it 
worth your while to hear or answer what they say. I dare 
say I need not tell you how rude it is to take the best 
place in a room, or to seize immediately upon what you like 
at table, without offering first to help others, as if you 
considered nobody but yourself. On the contrary, you 
should always endeavor to procure all the conveniences 
you can to the people you are with. Besides being civil, 
which is absolutely necessary, the perfection of good breed- 
ing is, to be civil with ease, and in a gentlemanlike man- 
ner. For this, you should observe the French people, who 
excel in it, and whose politeness seems as easy and natural 
as any other part of their conversation. Whereas the 
English are often awkward in their civilities, and, when 
they mean to be civil, are too much ashamed to get it out. 
But, pray, do you remember never to be ashamed of doing 
what is right : you would have a great deal of reason to 
be ashamed if you were not civil ; but what reason can 
you have to be ashamed of being civil? And why not say 
a civil and an obliging thing as easily and as naturally as 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 7 

you would ask what o'clock it is ? This kind of bashful- 
ness, justly called false modesty, is the distinguishing char- 
acter of an English booby ; who is frightened out of his ; 
wits, when people of fashion speak to him ; and when he 
is to answer them, blushes, stammers, can hardly get out 
what he would say, and becomes really ridiculous, from a 
groundless fear of being laughed at : whereas a really well- 
bred man would speak to all the Kings in the world, with 
as little concern, and as much ease, as he would speak to 
you. Adieu. 



LETTEE V. 

DEAR BOY, Spa, the 25th July, 1741. 

I have often told you in my former letters (and it is 
most certainly true) that the strictest and most scrupulous 
honor and virtue can alone make you esteemed and valued 
by mankind ; that parts and learning can alone make you 
admired and celebrated by them ; but that the possession 
of lesser talents was most absolutely necessary towards 
making you liked, beloved, and sought after in private 
life. Of these lesser talents, good breeding is the princi- 
pal and most necessary one, not only as it is very impor- 
tant in itself, but as it adds great lustre to the more solid 
advantages both of the heart and the mind. I have often 
touched upon good breeding to you before, so that this 
letter shall be upon the next necessary qualification to it, 
which is a genteel, easy manner and carriage, wholly free 
from those odd tricks, ill habits, and awkwardnesses which 
even many very worthy and sensible people have in their 
behavior. However trifling a genteel manner may sound, 



8 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

it is of very great consequence towards pleasing in private 
life, especially the women, which, one time or other, you 
will think worth pleasing ; and I have known many a man, 
from his awkwardness, give people such a dislike of him at 
first, that all his merit could not get the better of it after- 
wards. Whereas a genteel manner prepossesses people in 
your favor, bends them towards you, and makes them 
wish to like you. Awkwardness can proceed but from two 
causes — either from not having kept good company, or 
from not having attended to it. As for your keeping good 
company, I will take care of that ; do you take care to 
observe their ways and manners, and to form your own 
upon them. Attention is absolutely necessary for this, as 
indeed it is for everything else, and a man without atten- 
tion is not fit to live in the world. When an awkward 
fellow first comes into a room, it is highly probable that 
his sword gets between his legs and throws him down, or 
makes him stumble, at least. When he has recovered this 
accident, he goes and places himself in the very place of 
the whole room where he should not ; there he soon lets 
his hat fall down, and in taking it up again, throws down 
his cane ; in recovering his cane, his hat falls a second 
time ; so that he is a quarter of an hour before he is in 
order again. If he drinks tea or coffee he certainly scalds 
his mouth, and lets either the cup or the saucer fall, and 
spills the tea or coffee in his breeches. At dinner his 
awkwardness distinguishes itself particularly, as he has 
more to do : there he holds his knife, fork, and spoon dif- 
ferently from other people ; eats with his knife to the great 
danger of his mouth ; picks his teeth with his fork, and 
puts his spoon, which lias been in his throat twenty times, 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 9 

into the dishes again. If he is to carve, he can never hit 
the joint, but, in his vain efforts to cut through the bone, 
scatters the sauce in everybody's face. He generally daubs 
himself with soup and grease, though his napkin is com- 
monly stuck through a buttonhole and tickles his chin. 

There is, likewise, an awkwardness of expression and 
words, most carefully to be avoided ; such as false English, 
bad pronunciation, old sayings, and common proverbs; 
which are so many proofs of having kept bad and low 
company. For example : if, instead of saying that tastes 
are different, and that every man has his own peculiar one, 
you should let off a proverb, and say, " That what is one 
man's meat is another man's poison " ; or else, " Every one as 
they like, as the good man said when he kissed his cow " ; 
everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept 
company with anybody above footmen and housemaids. 

Attention will do all this ; and without attention noth- 
ing is to be done : want of attention, which is really want 
of thought, is either folly or madness. \ You should not 
only have attention to everything, but a quickness of atten- 
tion, so as to observe, at once, all the people in the room, 
their motions, their looks, and their words, and yet with- 
out staring at them, and seeming to be an observer. This 
quick and unobserved observation is of infinite advantage 
in life, and is to be acquired with care ; and, on the con- 
trary, what is called absence, which is a thoughtlessness, 
and want of attention about what is doing, makes a man 
so like either a fool or a madman, that for my part I see 
no real difference. A fool never has thought ; a madman 
has lost it ; and an absent man is, for the time, without it. 
Adieu. 



10 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 



LETTER VI. 

DEAR BOY, Spa, August the 6th, 1741. 

I AM glad you have begun to compose a little ; it will 
give you a habit of thinking upon subjects, which is at 
least as necessary as reading them. 

Let me know whether you think that a man is born only 
for his own pleasure and advantage, or whether he is not 
obliged to contribute to the good of the society in which 
he lives, and of all mankind in general. This is certain, 
that every man receives advantages from society, which he 
could not have, if he were the only man in the world : 
therefore, is he not in some measure in debt to society? 
and is he not obliged to do for others what they do for 
him? You may do this in English or Latin, which you 
please ; for it is the thinking part, and not the language, 
that I mind in this case. 

I warned you, in my last, against those disagreeable 
tricks and awkwardnesses, which many people contract 
when they are young, by the negligence of their parents, 
and cannot get quit of them when they are old ; such as 
odd motions, strange postures, and ungenteel carriage. 
But there is likewise an awkwardness of the mind, that 
ought to be, and with care may be, avoided : as, for 
instance, to mistake or forget names; to speak of ^Ir. 
What-d'ye-call-him, or Mrs. Thingum, or IIow-dYe-call- 
her, is excessively awkward and ordinary. To call people 
by improper titles and appellations is so, too. To begin 
a story or narration, when you are not perfect in it, and 



LOKD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 11 

cannot go through with it, but are forced, possibly, to say 
in the middle of it, "I have forgot the rest," is very 
unpleasant and bungling. One must be extremely exact, 
clear, and perspicuous in everything one says, otherwise, 
instead of entertaining or informing others, one only tires 
and puzzles them. The voice and manner of speaking, 
too, are not to be neglected : some people almost shut 
their mouths when they speak, and mutter so that they 
are not to be understood ; others speak so fast, and sputter, 
that they are not to be understood neither ; some always 
speak as loud as if they were talking to deaf people ; and 
others so low that one cannot hear them. All these habits 
are awkward and disagreeable, and are to be avoided hj atten- 
tion : they are the distinguishing marks of the ordinary 
people, who have had no care taken of their education. 



LETTEE VII. 

SlR, Saturday. 

/ It i s good breeding alone that can prepossess people 
in your favour at first sight : more time being necessary 
to discover greater talents. This good breeding, you 
know, does not consist in low bows and formal ceremony ; 
but in an easy, civil, and respectful behaviour. You will 
therefore take care to answer with complaisance, when 
you are spoken to ; to place yourself at the lower end of 
the table, unless bid to go higher; not to eat awkwardly 
or dirtily ; not to sit when others stand : and to do all 
this with an air of complaisance, and not with a grave, 
sour look, as if you did it all unwillingly. I do not mean 



12 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

a silly, insipid smile, that fools have when they would be 
civil ; but an air of sensible good humor. I hardly know 
anything so difficult to attain, or so necessary to possess, 
as perfect good breeding, which is equally inconsistent 
with a stiff formality, an impertinent forwardness, and an 
awkward bashfulness. A little ceremony is often neces- 
sary ; a certain degree of firmness is absolutely so ; and 
an outward modesty is extremely becoming : the knowl- 
edge of the world, and your own observations, must, and 
alone can, tell you the proper quantities of each. Adieu. 



LETTEE VIII. 

DEAR BOY, Dublin Castle, November the 19th, 1745. 

I have received your last Saturday's performance, 
with which I am very well satisfied. 

Dancing is in itself a very trifling, silly thing ; but it 
is one of those established follies to which people of sense 
are sometimes obliged to conform ; and then they should 
be able to do it well. And, though I would not have you 
a dancer, yet, when you do dance, I would have you dance 
well, as I would have you do everything you do well. 
There is no one thing so trifling, but which (if it is to 
be done at all) ought to be done well. And I have 
often told you, that I wished you even played at pitch, 
and cricket, better than any boy at Westminster. For 
instance ; dress is a very foolish thing ; and yet it is a 
very foolish thing for a man not to be well dressed, accord- 
ing to his rank and way of life ; and it is so far from 
being a disparagement to any man's understanding, that it 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 13 

is rather a proof of it, to be as well dressed as those whom 
he lives with : the difference in this case, between a man 
of sense and a fop, is, that the fop values himself upon his 
dress ; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time 
that he knows he must not neglect it. There are a thou- 
sand foolish customs of this kind, which not being criminal 
must be complied with, and even cheerfully, by men of 
sense. Diogenes the Cynic was a wise man for despising 
them ; but a fool for showing it. Be wiser than other 
people, if you can ; but do not tell them so. Good-night. 



LETTER IX. 

DEAR Boy, Bath, October the 4th, 1746. 

Though I employ so much of my time in writing to 
you, I confess I have often my doubts whether it is to any 
purpose. I know how unwelcome advice generally is; I 
know that those who want it most like it and follow it 
least; and I know, too, that the advice of parents, more 
particularly, is ascribed to the moroseness, the imperious- 
ness, or the garrulity of old age. I flatter myself that, 
your own reason, young as it is, must tell you that I can 
have no interest but yours in the advice I give you; and 
that, consequently, you will at least weigh and consider 
it well: in which case, some of it will, I hope, have its 
effect. Do not think that I mean to dictate as a parent; 
I only mean to advise as a friend, and an indulgent one 
too: and do not apprehend that I mean to check your 
pleasures; of which, on the contrary, I only desire to be 

Garrulity : talkativeness. 



14 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

the guide, not the censor. Let my experience supply 
your want of it, and clear your way in the progress of 
your youth of those thorns and briers which scratched 
and disfigured me in the course of mine. 

I have so often recommended to you attention and 
application to whatever you learn, that I do not mention 
them now as duties, but I point them out to you as con- 
ducive, nay, absolutely necessary, to your pleasures; for 
can there be a greater pleasure than to be universally 
allowed to excel those of one's own age and manner of 
life? And, consequently, can there be anything more 
mortifying than to be excelled by them ? I do not con- 
fine the application which I recommend, singly to the 
view and emulation of excelling others (though that is a 
very sensible pleasure and a very warrantable pride); but 
I mean likewise to excel in the thing itself: for, in my 
mind, one may as well not know a thing at all, as know 
it but imperfectly. To know a little of anything, gives 
neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace 
or ridicule. 

Mr. Pope says, very truly, 

" A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." 

And what is called a smattering of everything infallibly 
constitutes a coxcomb. I have often, of late, reflected 
what an unhappy man I must now have been, if I had 
not acquired in my youth some fund and»taste of learning. 
What could I have done with myself, at this age, without 

Pierian: Relating to the muses; called Pierides, from Picria near Mt. 
Olympus, where they worshipped. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 15 

them? My books, and only my books, are now left me; 
and I daily find what Cicero says of learning to be true: 
" These studies," says he, " nourish our youth, delight our 
age, adorn our good fortune, offer refuge and solace in 
adversity ; delight us at home, are not a hindrance abroad ; 
pass the night with us, travel with us, go into the country 
with us." 

I do not mean, by this, to exclude conversation out of 
the pleasures of an advanced age; on the contrary, it is a 
very great and a very rational pleasure, at all ages; but 
the conversation of the ignorant is no conversation, and 
gives even them no pleasure: they tire of their own 
sterility, and have not matter enough to furnish them 
with words to keep up a conversation. 

Let me, therefore, most earnestly recommend to you to 
hoard up, while you can, a great stock of knowledge; for 
though, during the dissipation of your youth, you may 
not have occasion to spend much of it, yet } t ou may de- 
pend upon it that a time will come, when you will want 
it to maintain you. Public granaries are filled in plenti- 
ful years; not that it is known that the next, or the 
second, or third year will prove a scarce one, but because 
it is known that sooner or later such a year will come, in 
which the grain will be wanted. 

Do not imagine that the knowledge, which I so much 
recommend to you, is confined to books, pleasing, useful, 
and necessary as that knowledge is: but I comprehend in 
it the great knowledge of the world, still more necessary 
than that of books. In truth, they assist one another 
reciprocally; and no man will have either perfectly, who 
has not both. The knowledge of the world is only to be 



16 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

acquired in the world, and not in a closet. Books alone 
will never teach it you; but they will suggest many 
things to your observation, which might otherwise escape 
you; and your own observations upon mankind, Avhen 
compared with those which you will find in books, will 
help you to fix the true point. 

To know mankind well requires full as much attention 
and application as to know books, and, it may be, more 
sagacity and discernment. I am, at this time, acquainted 
with many elderly people, who have all passed their whole 
lives in the great world, but with such levity and in- 
attention, that they know no more of it now than they 
did at fifteen. Do not flatter yourself, therefore, with the 
thoughts that you can acquire this knowledge in the 
frivolous chit-chat of idle companies: no, you must go 
much deeper than that. You must look into people, as 
well as at them. Almost all people are born with all the 
passions, to a certain degree; but almost every man has a 
prevailing one, to which the others are subordinate. 
Search every one for that ruling passion; pry into the re- 
cesses of his heart, and observe the different workings of 
the same passion in different people. And, when you 
have found out the prevailing passion of any man, remem- 
ber never to trust him, where that passion is concerned. 
Be upon your guard yourself against it, whatever profes- 
sions he may make you. 

I would desire you to read this letter twice over. 
Adieu. 

Chesterfield. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 17 



LETTER X. 

DEAR BOY, Bath, October the 9th, 1746. 

Your distresses in your journey from Heidelberg to 
Schaffhausen, your lying upon straw, your black bread, 
and your broken Berline, are proper seasonings for the 
greater fatigues and distresses, which you must expect in 
the course of your travels; and, if one had a mind to 
moralize, one might call them the samples of the accidents, 
rubs, and difficulties, which every man meets with in his 
journey through life. In this journey, the understanding 
is the vehicle that must carry you through; and in pro- 
portion as that is stronger or weaker, more or less in 
repair, your journey will be better or worse; though, at 
best, you will now and then find some bad roads, and some 
bad inns. Take care, therefore, to keep that necessary 
vehicle in perfect good repair; examine, improve and 
strengthen it every day: it is in the power, and ought to 
be the care, of every man to do it; he that neglects it 
deserves to feel, and certainly will feel, the fatal effects 
of that negligence. 

But a young man should be ambitious to shine and 
excel; alert, active, and indefatigable in the means of 
doing it; and, like Caesar, " Reckoning nothing done, if 
anything remains that ought to be done." You seem to 
want that vital energy of soul which spurs and excites 
most young men to please, to shine, to excel. Without 
the desire and the pains necessary to be considerable, 



18 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

depend upon it that you never can be so; as, without 
the desire and attention necessary to please, you never can 
please. " A diety is not wanting if there be prudence," is 
unquestionably true with regard to everything except 
poetry; and I am very sure that any man of common under- 
standing may, by proper culture, care, attention, and labor, 
make himself whatever he pleases except a good poet. 
Ancient and Modern History are, by attention, easily attain- 
able. Geography and Chronology the same; none of them 
requiring any uncommon share of genius or invention. 
Speaking and writing clearly, correctly, and with ease and 
grace, are certainly to be acquired by reading the best 
authors with care, and by attention to the best living 
models. 

If care and application are necessary to the acquiring 
of those qualifications, without which you can never be 
considerable nor make a figure in the world, they are not 
less necessary with regard to the lesser accomplishments, 
which are requisite to make you agreeable and pleasing in 
society. In truth, whatever is worth doing at all is worth 
doing well, and nothing can be done well without atten- 
tion: I therefore carry the necessity of attention down to 
the lowest things, even to dancing and dress. Custom 
has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man : 
therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn 
to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous 
act. Dress is of the same nature; you must dress, there- 
fore attend to it; not in order to rival or to excel a fop in 

\ it, but in order to avoid singularity, and consequent ly 
ridicule. Take great care always to be dressed like the 

• reasonable people of your own age, In the place where you 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 19 

are, whose dress is never spoken of one way or another, as 
either too negligent or too much studied. 

What is commonly called an absent man, is commonly 
either a very weak or a very affected man; but be he 
which he will, he is, I am sure, a very disagreeable man in 
company. He fails in all the common offices of civility; 
he seems not to know those people to-day with whom 
yesterday he appeared to live in intimacy. He takes no 
part in the general conversation; but, on the contrary, 
breaks into it from time to time with some start of his 
own, as if he waked from a dream. This (as I said before) 
is a sure indication either of a mind so weak that it is not 
able to bear above one object at a time; or so affected, that 
it would be supposed to be wholly engrossed by, and 
directed to, some very great and important objects. Sir 
Isaac Xewton, Mr. Locke, and (it may be) five or six 
more, since the creation of the world, may have had a 
right to absence, from that intense thought which the 
things they were investigating required. But if a young 
man, and a man of the world, who has no such avocations 
to plead, will claim and exercise that right of absence in 
company, his pretended right should, in my mind, be 
turned into an involuntary absence, by his perpetual ex- 
clusion from company. Adieu. 



LETTEE XI. 
DEAR BOY, London, March the 27th, 1747. 

Pleasure is the rock which most young people split 
upon; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, 
but without a compass to direct their course, or reason 



20 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and 
shame, instead of Pleasure, are the returns of their voy- 
age. Do not think that I mean to snarl at Pleasure, like 
a Stoic, or to preach against it, like a Parson; no, I mean 
to point it out, and recommend it to you, like an 
Epicurean: I wish you a great deal, and my only view is 
to hinder you from mistaking it. 

As it may be of use to you, I am not unwilling, though 
at the same time ashamed, to own that the vices of my 
youth proceeded much more from my silly resolution of 
being what I heard called a Man of Pleasure, than from 
my own inclinations. I always naturally hated drinking; 
and yet I have often drunk, with disgust at the time, 
attended by great sickness the next day, only because I 
then considered drinking as a necessary qualification for a 
fine gentleman and a Man of Pleasure. 

The same as to gaming. I did not want money, and 
consequently had no occasion to play for it ; but I 
thought Play another necessary ingredient in the com- 
position of a Man of Pleasure, and accordingly I plunged 
into it without desire, at first; sacrificed a thousand real 
pleasures to it; and made myself solidly uneasy by it, for 
thirty of the best years of my life. 

I was even absurd enough, for a little while, to swear, 
by way of adorning and completing the shining character 
which I affected; but this folly I soon laid aside upon 
finding both the guilt and the indecency of it. 

Stoic: one teaching that a wise man should be unmoved by passions 
like joy or grief. 

Epicurus: a Greek philosopher who taught that life should be devoted 
to pleasure. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 21 

Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly adopting nominal 
pleasures, I lost real ones ; and my fortune impaired, and. 
my constitution shattered, are, I must confess, the just 
punishment of my errors. 

Take warning, then, by them; choose your pleasures 
for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you. 
Follow nature, and not fashion; weigh the present enjoy- 
ment of your pleasures against the necessary consequences 
of them, and then let your own common sense determine 
your choice. 

Were I to begin the world again, with the experience 
which I now have of it, I would lead a life of real, not of 
imaginary pleasure. I would be most firmly resolved not 
to destroy my own faculties and constitution in com- 
plaisance to those who have no regard to their own. I 
would play to give me pleasure, but not to give me pain. 

I would pass some of my time in reading, and the rest 
in the company of people of sense and learning, and 
chiefly those above me: and I would frequent the mixed 
companies of men and women of fashion, which though 
often frivolous, yet they unbend and refresh the mind, not 
uselessly, because they certainly polish and soften the 
manners. 

These would be my pleasures and amusements, if I 
were to live the last thirty years over again; they are 
rational ones; and moreover I will tell you, they are 
really the fashionable ones: for the others are not, in 
truth, the pleasures of what I call people of fashion, but 
of those who only call themselves so. Does good com- 
pany care to have a man reeling drunk among them? Or 
to see another tearing his hair, and blaspheming, for 



22 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

having lost, at play, more than he is able to pay? No; 
those who practice, and much more those who brag of 
them, make no part of good company; and are most 
unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real man of 
fashion and pleasure observes decency; at least, neither 
borrows nor affects vices. 

I have not mentioned the pleasures of the mind (which 
are the solid and permanent ones) because they do not 
come under the head of what people commonly call 
pleasures, which they seem to confine to the senses. The 
pleasure of virtue, of charity, and of learning is true and 
lasting pleasure ; which I hope you will be well and long 
acquainted with. Adieu. 



LETTEE XII. 

DEAR BOY, London, April the 3rd, 1747. 

The natural partiality of every author for his own 
works, makes me very glad to hear that Mr. Harte has 
thought this last edition of mine worth so fine a binding ; 
and as he has bound it in reel and gilt it upon the back, I 
hope he will take care that it shall be lettered too. A 
showy binding attracts the eyes, and engages the attention 
of everybody ; but with this difference, that women, and 
men of sense and learning immediately examine the 
inside ; and if they find that it does not answer the 
finery on the outside, they throw it by with the greater 
indignation and contempt. I hope that when this edition 
of my works shall be opened and read, the best judges 
will find connection, consistency, solidity, and spirit in it. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 23 

Mr. Harte may revise and emend as much as he pleases, 
but it will be to little purpose if you do not cooperate 
with him. The work will be imperfect. 

I like your account of the salt works ; which shows 
that you gave some attention while you were seeing them. 
But, notwithstanding that, by your account, the Swiss 
salt is (I dare say) very good, yet I am apt to suspect 
that it falls a little short of the true Attic salt, in which 
there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. That same 
Attic salt seasoned almost all Greece, except Boeotia ; 
and a great deal of it was exported afterwards to Rome, 
where it was counterfeited by a composition called 
Urbanity, which after some time was brought to very near 
the perfection of the original Attic salt. The more you 
are powdered with these two kinds of salt, the better you 
will keep, and the more you will be relished. 

Adieu ! My compliments to Mr. Harte and Mr. Eliot. 



LETTEE XIII. 

DEAR Boy, London, April the 14th, 1747. 

You may remember, that I have always earnestly 
recommended to you, to do what you are about, be that 
what it will; and to do nothing else at the same time. 
Do not imagine that I mean by this, that you should 
attend to, and plod at, your book all day long; far from 
it: I mean that you should have your pleasures too; and 
that you should attend to them, for the time, as much as 
to your studies; and if you do not attend equally to both, 

Attica: a district in Greece of which Athens was the capital and the 
center of learning 



24 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

you will neither have improvement nor satisfaction from 
either. A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure who 
either cannot, or does not, command and direct his atten- 
tion to the present object, and in some degree banish, for 
that time, all other objects from his thoughts. If at a 
ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be 
solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would 
be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in 
that company; or if, m studying a problem in his closet, 
he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he 
would make a very poor mathematician. There is time 
enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do 
but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the 
year, if you will do two things at a time. The Pensionary 2 
de Witt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did the 
whole business of the Republic, and yet had time left to 
go to assemblies in the evening, and sup in company. 
Being asked how he could possibly find time to go 
through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the 
evenings as he did, he answered, " There was nothing so 
easy; for that it was only doing one thing at a time, and 
never putting off anything till to-morrow that could be 
done to-day." This steady and undissipated attention to 
one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, 
bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a 
weak and frivolous mind. When you read Horace, attend 
to the justness of his thoughts, the happiness of his 
diction, and the beauty of his poetry. 

There is a little book which you read here with Monsieur 
Coderc, entitled, The Art of Right Thinking, written by 
1 Prime Minister of Holland. 



LOED CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 25 

Pere Bouhours. I wish you would read this book again, 
at your leisure hours; for it will not only divert you, but 
likewise form your taste, and give you a just manner of 
thinking. Adieu ! 



LETTEE XIV. 

DEAR BOY, London, June the 30th, 1747. 

Though I do not desire that you should immediately 
turn author, and oblige the world with your travels; yet, 
wherever you go, I would have you as curious and inquis- 
itive as if you did intend to write them. I do not mean 
that you should give yourself so much trouble, to know 
the number of houses, inhabitants, signposts, and tomb- 
stones of every town that you go through; but that you 
should inform yourself, as well as your stay will permit 
you, whether the town is free, or whom it belongs to, or 
in what manner; whether it has any peculiar privileges or 
customs; what trade or manufactures; and such other 
particulars as people of sense desire to know. And there 
would be no manner of harm, if you were to take memo- 
randums of such things in a note book to help your 
memory. The only way of knowing all these things is, 
to keep the best company, who can best inform you of 
them. 

I am just now called away; so good-night ! 



26 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 



LETTEK XV. 

DEAR BOY, London, July the 30th, 1747. 

As you must attend to your manners, so you must not 
neglect your person; but take care to be very clean, well 
dressed, and genteel; to have no disagreeable attitudes, nor 
awkward tricks; which many people accustom themselves 
to, and then cannot leave them off. Do you take care to 
keep your teeth very clean, by washing them constantly 
every morning, and after every meal ? . This is very 
necessary, both to preserve your teeth a great while, and 
to save you a great deal of pain. Mine have plagued me 
long, and are now falling out, merely for want of care 
when I was of your age. Do you dress well, and not too 
well? Do you consider your air and manner of presenting 
yourself enough, and not too much ? neither negligent nor 
stiff. All these things deserve a degree of care, a second- 
rate attention; they give an additional luster to real merit. 
My Lord Bacon says, that a pleasing figure is a perpetual 
letter of recommendation. It is certainly an agreeable 
forerunner of merit, and smooths the way for it. 



LETTER XVI. 

DEAR BOY, London, October the 9th, 1747. 

PEOPLE of your age have commonly an unguarded 
Frankness about them, which makes them the easy prey 
and bubbles of the artful and the experienced: they look 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 27 

upon every knave, or fool, who tells them that he is their 
friend, to be really so; and pay that profession of simulated 
friendship with an indiscreet and unbounded confidence, 
always to their loss, often to their ruin. Beware, there- 
fore, now that you are coming into the world, of these 
proffered friendships. Do not let your vanity and self- 
love make you suppose that people become your friends 
at first sight, or even upon a short acquaintance. Seal 
friendship is a slow grower; and never thrives, unless 
ingrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. 
There is another kind of nominal friendship, among 
young people, which is warm for the time, but, by good 
luck, of short duration. This friendship is hastily pro- 
duced by their being accidentally thrown together, and 
pursuing the same course of riot and debauchery. A fine 
friendship, truly! and well cemented by drunkenness and 
lewdness. It should rather be called a conspiracy against 
morals and good manners, and be punished as such by the 
civil magistrate. However, they have the impudence 
and the folly to call this confederacy a friendship. They 
lend one another money for bad purposes; they engage in 
quarrels, offensive and defensive, for their accomplices; 
they tell one another all they know, and often more too; 
when, of a sudden, some accident disperses them, and 
they think no more of each other, unless it be to betray 
and laugh at their imprudent confidence. Remember to 
make a great difference between companions and friends; 
for a very complaisant and agreeable companion may, and 
often does, prove a very improper and a very dangerous 
friend. People will, in a great degree, and not without 
reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they 



28 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb, 
which says very justly, Tell me whom you live with, and I 
will tell you who you are. One may fairly suppose that a 
man who makes a knave or a fool his friend, has some- 
thing very bad to do, or to conceal. But, at the same time 
that you carefully decline the friendship of knaves and 
fools, if it can be called friendship, there is no occasion to 
make either of them your enemies, wantonly and unpro- 
voked; have a real reserve with almost everybody. 

The next thing to the choice of your friends is the 
choice of your company. Endeavor, as much as you can, 
to keep company with people above you. There you rise, 
as much as you sink with people below you; for (as I have 
mentioned before) you are whatever the company you 
keep is. Do not mistake, when I say company above you, 
and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is 
the least consideration: but I mean with regard to their 
merit, and the light in which the world considers 
them. 

There are two sorts of good company; one which is 
called the Society and consists of those people who 
have the lead in Courts, and in the gay part of life; the 
other consists of those who are distinguished by some 
peculiar merit, or who excel in some particular and 
valuable art or science. For my own part, I used to think 
myself in company as much above me, when I was with 
Mr. Addison and Mr. Pope, as if I had been with all the 
princes in Europe. What I mean by low company, which 
should by all means be avoided, is the company of those 
who, absolutely insignificant and contemptible in them- 
selves, think they are honored by bein^' in your company, 




LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 29 

and who flatter every vice and every folly you have, in 
order to engage you to converse with them. The pride of 
being the first of the company is but too common; but it 
is very silly and very prejudicial. Nothing in the world 
lets down a character more than that wrong turn. 

You may possibly ask me whether a man has it always 
in his power to get into the best company ? and how ? I 
say, Yes, he has, by deserving it; provided he is but in 
circumstances which enable him to appear upon the 
footing of a gentleman. Merit and good breeding will 
make their way everywhere. Knowledge will introduce 
him, and good breeding will endear him to the best com- 
panies; for, as I have often told you, politeness and good 
breeding are absolutely necessary to adorn any or all other 
good qualities or talents. Without them, no knowledge, 
no perfection whatsoever, is seen in its best light. The 
Scholar, without good breeding, is a Pedant; the Philoso- 
pher, a Cynic; the Soldier, a brute; and every man 
disagreeable. Adieu. 



LETTEE XVII. 

DEAR BOY, London, October the 16th, 1747. 

The art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess, 
but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be 
reduced to rules, and your own good sense and observation 
will teach you more of it than I can. Do as you would 
be done by is the surest method that I know of pleasing. 
Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably 
the same things in you will please others. Do not tell 



30 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

stories in company; there is nothing more tedious and 
disagreeable: if by chance you know a very short story, 
and exceedingly applicable to the present subject of 
conversation, tell it in as few words as possible; and even 
then throw out that you do not love to tell stories, but 
that the shortness of it tempted you. Of all things, 
banish egotism from your conversation, and never think 
of entertaining people with your own personal concerns or 
private affairs; though they are interesting to you, they 
are tedious and impertinent to everybody else; besides 
that, one cannot keep one's own private affairs too secret. 
Whatever you think your own excellencies may be, do not 
affectedly display them in company; nor labor, as many 
people do, to give that turn to the conversation which may 
supply you with an opportunity of exhibiting them. If 
they are real, they will infallibly be discovered without 
your pointing them out yourself, and with much more 
advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and 
clamor, though you think or know yourself to be in the 
right; but give your opinion modestly and coolly which is 
the only way to convince; and if that does not do, try to 
change the conversation, by saying, Avith good humor, 
" We shall hardly convince one another, nor is it necessary 
that we should, so let us talk of something else." 

Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed 
in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in 
one company may be, and often is, highly improper in 
another. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 31 



LETTEE XVIIL 

DEAR BOY, London, December the 11th, 1747. 

There is nothing which I more wish, that you should 
know, and which fewer people do know, than the true use 
and value of Time. It is in everybody's mouth, but in few 
people's practice. Every fool, who slatterns away his whole 
time in nothings, utters, however, some trite commonplace 
sentence, of which there are millions, to prove at once the 
value and fleetness of time. The sun-dials, likewise, all 
over Europe, have some ingenious inscription to that effect; 
so that nobody squanders away their time without hearing 
and seeing daily how necessary it is to employ it well, and 
how irrecoverable it is if lost. But all these admonitions 
are useless, where there is not a fund of good sense and 
reason to suggest them, rather than receive them. By the 
manner in which you now tell me that you employ your 
time, I flatter myself that you have that fund; that is the 
fund which will make you rich indeed. I do not, therefore, 
mean to give 3-011 a critical essay upon the use and abuse of 
time ; I will only give you some hints with regard to the use 
of one particular period of that long time which, I hope, 
you have before you; I mean the next two years. Remem- 
ber, then, that whatever knowledge 3-011 do not solidly lay 
the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never 
be master of while you breathe. Knowledge is a comfort- 
able and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced 
age; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us 
no shade when we grow old. If you should sometimes 



32 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

think it a little laborious, consider that labor is the 
unavoidable fatigue of a necessary journey. The more 
hours a day you travel, the sooner you will be at your 
journey's end. The sooner you are qualified for your 
liberty, the sooner you shall have it; and your manumission 
will entirely depend upon the manner in which you employ 
the intermediate time. I think I offer you a very good 
bargain, when I promise you, upon my word, that if you 
will do everything that I would have you do, till you are 
eighteen, I will do everything that you would have me do, 
ever afterwards. 

Books of science, and of a grave sort, must be read with 
continuity; but there are very many, and even very useful 
ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches, and 
unconnectedly: such are all the good Latin Poets, except 
Virgil in his JEneid; and such are most of the modern 
poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading, 
that will not take up above seven or eight minutes. 
Bayle's, Moreri's, and other dictionaries are proper books 
to take and shut up for the little intervals of (otherwise) 
idle time, that everybody has in the course of the day, 
between either their studies or their pleasures. Good- 
night. , 



LETTEK XIX. 

DEAR BOY, London, January the 15th, 1748. 

Make yourself master of Ancient and Modern History, 
and Languages. To know perfectly the constitution and 
form of government of every nation; the growth and the 



LOKD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 33 

decline of ancient and modern Empires; and to trace out 
and reflect upon the causes of both. To know the 
strength, the riches, and the commerce of every country. 
There are some additional qualifications necessary in the 
practical part of business, which may deserve some consid- 
eration in your leisure moments; such as an absolute 
command of your temper, so as not to be provoked to 
passion upon any account: Patience to hear frivolous, 
impertinent, and unreasonable applications; with address 
enough to refuse, without offending; or by your manner 
of granting, to double the obligation: Dexterity enough 
to conceal a truth without telling a lie: Sagacity enough 
to read other people's countenances: and Serenity enough 
not to let them discover anything by yours. These are 
the rudiments of a Politician; the world must be your 
grammar. . Yours. 



LETTEB XX. 

DEAR BOY, Bath, February the 16th, 1748. 

I have given the description of the life that I propose 
to lead for the future, in this motto, which I have put up 
in the frieze of my library in my new house: 

Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis 
Ducere sollicitas jucunda oblivia vitas. 1 

I must observe to you, upon this occasion, that the 
uninterrupted satisfaction which I expect to find in that 

1 Now with old books, now in slumber and at leisure, pleasing forget- 
fulness allures from anxious care 



34 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

library, will be chiefly owing to my having employed some 
part of my life well at your age. I wish I had employed it 
better, and my satisfaction would now be complete; but, 
however, I planted, while young, that degree of knowledge 
which is now my refuge and my shelter. Make your 
plantations still more extensive, they will more than pay 
you for your trouble. I do not regret the time that I 
passed in pleasures; they were seasonable, they were the 
pleasures of youth, and I enjoyed them while young. If I 
had not, I should probably have overvalued them now, as 
we are very apt to do what we do not know: but, knowing 
them as I do, I know their real value, and how much they 
are generally overrated. Nor do I regret the time that I 
have passed in business, for the same reason; those who 
see only the outside of it imagine that it has hidden 
charms, which they pant after; and nothing but acquaint- 
ance can undeceive them. I, who have been behind the 
scenes, both of pleasure and business, and have seen all 
the springs and pulleys of those decorations which astonish 
and dazzle the audience, retire, not only without regret, but 
with contentment and satisfaction. But what I do and 
ever shall regret, is the time which, while young, I lost in 
mere idleness and in doing nothing. This is the common 
effect of the inconsideracy of youth, against which I beg 
you will be most carefully upon your guard. The value of 
moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed; if 
thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable. Every moment 
may be put to some use, and that with much more pleasure 
than if unemployed. Do not imagine that, by the employ- 
ment of time, I mean an uninterrupted application to 
serious studies. No; pleasures are, at proper times, both 



LOED CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 35 

as necessary and as useful: they fashion and form you for 
the world; they teach you characters, and show you the 
human heart in its unguarded minutes. But, then, remem- 
ber to make that use of them. I have known many people, 
from laziness of mind, go through both pleasure and 
business with equal inattention; neither enjoying the one, 
nor doing the other; thinking themselves men of pleasure, 
because they were mingled with those who were; and men 
of business, because they had business to do, though they 
did not do it. Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do 
it thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom of 
tilings. Anything half done, or half known, is, in my 
mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay worse, for it 
often misleads. There is hardly any place, or any company, 
where you may not gain knowledge if you please; almost 
everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk upon 
that one thing. Seek and you will find, in this world as 
well as in the next. See everything, inquire into every- 
thing; and you may excuse your curiosity, and the ques- 
tions you ask, which otherwise might be thought imperti- 
nent, by your manner of asking them; for most things 
depend a great deal upon the manner. As, for example, 
I am afraid that I am very troublesome with my questions ; 
but nobody can inform me so ivell as you ; or something of 
that kind. 

When you frequent places of public worship, as I 
would have you go to all the different ones you meet 
with, remember that however erroneous, they are none of 
them objects of laughter and ridicule. Honest error is to 
be pitied, not ridiculed. The object of all the public 
worships in the world is the same; it is that great eternal 



36 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

Being, who created everything. The different manners of 
worship are by no means subjects of ridicule. Each sect 
thinks its own the best; and I know no infallible judge in 
this world to decide which is the best. Make the same 
inquiries, wherever you are, concerning the revenues, the 
military establishment, the trade, the commerce, and the 
police of every country. And you would do well to keep 
a note book, which the Germans call an Album: and 
there, instead of desiring, as they do, every fool they meet 
with to scribble something, write down all these things 
as soon as they come to your knowledge from good authori- 
ties. 

I had almost forgotten one thing which I would recom- 
mend as an object for your curiosity and information, that 
is, the Administration of Justice; which, as it is always 
carried on in open Court, you may, and I would have you, 
go and see it with attention and inquiry. 

I have now but one anxiety left which is concerning 
you. I would have you be, which I know nobody is, 
perfect. Yours. 



Jr 



LETTER XXI. 



DEAR BOY, Bath, February the 22nd, 1748. 

Every excellency, and every virtue, has its kindred 
vice or weakness; and if carried beyond certain bounds, 
sinks into the one or the other. Generosity often runs 
into Profusion, Economy into Avarice, Courage into 
Rashness, Caution into Timidity, and so on: — insomuch 
that, I believe, there is more judgment required for the 
proper conduct of our virtues, than for avoiding their 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 37 

opposite vices. Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, 
that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever 
seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some 
Virtue. But Virtue is in itself so beautiful, that it charms 
us at first sight; engages us more and more, upon further 
acquaintance; and, as with other Beauties, we think 
excess impossible: it is here that judgment is necessary 
to moderate and direct the effects of an excellent cause. 
I shall apply this reasoning, at present, not to any partic- 
ular virtue, but to an excellency, which for want of judg- 
ment is often the cause of ridiculous and blamable effects; 
I mean, great Learning, which, if not accompanied with 
sound judgment, frequently carries us into Error, Pride, 
and Pedantry. As I hope you will possess that excellency 
in its utmost extent, and yet without its too common 
failings, the. hints which my experience can suggest may 
probably not be useless to you. 

Some learned men, proud of their knowledge, only 
speak to decide, and give judgment without appeal. The 
consequence of which is, that mankind, provoked by the 
insult, and injured by the oppression, revolt; and in order 
to shake off the tyranny, even call the lawful authority in 
question. The more you know, the more modest you should 
be: and (by the by) that modesty is the surest way of 
gratifying your vanity. Even where you are sure, seem 
rather doubtful: represent, but do not pronounce; and if 
you would convince others, seem open to conviction 
yourself. 

Others, to show their learning, or often from the prej- 
udices of a school education, where they hear of nothing 
else, are always talking of the Ancients as something more 



38 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

than men, and of the Moderns as something less. They 
are never without a Classic or two in their pockets; they 
stick to the old good sense; they read none of the 
modern trash; and will show you plainly that no improve- 
ment has been made in any one art or science these last 
seventeen hundred years. I would by no means have 
you disown your acquaintance with the Ancients; but 
still less would I have you brag of an exclusive intimacy 
with them. Speak of the Moderns without contempt, and 
of the Ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their 
merits, but not by their ages; and if you happen to have 
an Elzevir classic in your pocket, neither show it nor 
mention it. 

Some great Scholars most absurdly draw all their 
maxims, both for public and private life, from what they 
call Parallel Cases in the ancient authors; without con- 
sidering, that, in the first place, there never were, since 
the creation of the world, two cases exactly parallel: and, 
in the next place, that there never was a case stated, or 
even known, by any Historian, with every one of its 
circumstances; which, however, ought to be known, in 
order to be reasoned from. Reason upon the case itself 
and the several circumstances that attend it, and act 
accordingly: but not from the authority of ancient Poets 
or Historians. Take into your consideration, if you 
please, cases seemingly analogous; but take them as helps 
only, not as guides. We are really so prejudiced by our 
educations, that, as the Ancients deified their Heroes, we 
deify their Madmen: of which, with all due regard to 

Elzevirs = famous Holland publishers. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 39 

antiquity, I take Leonidas and Curtius to have been two 
distinguished ones. And yet a stolid Pedant would, in a 
speech in Parliament, relative to a tax of twopence in the 
pound, upon some, commodity or other, quote those two 
heroes, as examples of what we ought to do and suffer for 
our country. I have known these absurdities carried so 
far, by people of injudicious learning, that I should not 
be surprised, if some of them were to propose, while we 
are at war with the Gauls, that a number of geese should 
be kept in the Tower, upon account of the infinite 
advantage which Rome received, in a ijarcdlel case, from a 
certain number of geese in the Capitol. This way of 
reasoning, and this way of speaking, will always form a 
poor politician, and a puerile declaimer. 

There is another species of learned men, who, though 
less dogmatical and supercilious, are not less impertinent. 
These are the communicative and shining Pedants, who 
adorn their conversation, even with women, by happy 
quotations of Greek and Latin, and who have contracted 
such a familiarity with the Greek and Roman authors, 
that they call them by certain names or epithets denoting 
intimacy. As old Homer; that sly rogue Horace; Maro, 
instead of Virgil; and Naso, instead of Ovid. These are 
often imitated by coxcombs who have no learning at all, 
but who have got some names and some scraps of ancient 
authors by heart, which they improperly and impertinently 
retail in all companies, in hopes of passing for scholars. 
If, therefore, you would avoid the accusation of pedantry, 
on one hand, or the suspicion of ignorance, on the other, 
abstain from learned ostentation. Speak the language of 
the company that you are in; speak it purely, and 



40 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

unlarded with any other. Never seem wiser, nor more 
learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learn- 
ing, like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull 
it out, merely to show that you have one. If you are 
asked what o'clock it is, tell it ; but do not proclaim it 
hourly and unasked, like the watchman. 

Upon the whole, remember that learning (I mean Greek 
and Roman learning) is a most useful and necessary orna- 
ment, which it is shameful not to be master of; but at 
the same time most carefully avoid those errors and 
abuses which I have mentioned, and which too often 
attend it. Remember, too, that great modern knowledge 
is still more necessary than ancient; and that you had 
better know perfectly the present than the old state of 
Europe; though I would have you well acquainted with 
both. 

Though, I confess, there is no great variety in your 
present manner of life, yet materials can never be want- 
ing for a letter; you see, you hear, or you read, something 
new every day; a short account of which, with your own 
reflections thereupon, will make out a letter very well. 



LETTER XXII. 

DEAR BOY, Bath, March the 9th, 1748. 

To engage the affection of any particular person, you 
must, over and above your general merit, have some 
particular merit to that person; by services done or 
offered; by expressions of regard and esteem; by com- 
plaisance, attentions, etc., for him; and the graceful 
manner of doing all these things opens the way to the 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 41 

heart, and facilitates, or rather insures, their effects. From 
your own observation, reflect what a disagreeable impression 
an awkward address, a slovenly figure, an ungraceful 
manner of speaking, whether stuttering, muttering, mon- 
otony, or drawling, an inattentive behavior, etc., make 
upon you, at first sight, in a stranger, and how they 
prejudice you against him, though, for aught you know, 
he may have great intrinsic sense and merit. And reflect, 
on the other hand, how much the opposites of all these 
things prepossess you at first sight in favor of those who 
enjoy them. You wish to find all good qualities in them, 
and are in some degree disappointed if you do not. A 
thousand little things, not separately to be defined, conspire 
to form these Graces, this indescribable something, that 
always pleases. A pretty person, genteel motions, a 
proper degree of dress, an harmonious voice, something 
open and cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing; 
a distinct and properly varied manner of speaking; all 
these things, and many others, are necessary ingredients in 
the composition of the pleasing indescribable something, 
which everybody feels, though nobody can describe. 
Observe carefully, then, what displeases or pleases you in 
others, and be persuaded that in general the same things 
will please or displease them in you. Frequent and loud 
laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners; it 
is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy, at 
silly things; and they call it being merry. In my mind, 
there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill bred, as audible 
laughter. True wit, or sense, never yet made anybody 
laugh; they are above it; they please the mind, and give 
a cheerfulness to the countenance. But it is low 



42 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter; 
and that is what people of sense and breeding should show 
themselves above. A man's going to sit down, in the 
supposition that he has a chair behind him, and falling 
down for want of one, sets a whole company a-laughing, 
when all the wit in the world would not do it; a plain 
proof, in my mind, how low and unbecoming a thing 
laughter is. Not to mention the disagreeable noise that 
it makes, and the shocking distortion of the face that it 
occasions. Laughter is easily restrained by a very little 
reflection, but as it is generally connected with the idea of 
gaiety, people do not enough attend to its absurdity. I 
am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical disposition; and 
am as willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody; but I 
am sure that, since I have had the full use of my reason, 
nobody has ever heard me laugh. Many people, at first 
from awkwardness and false modesty, have got a very 
disagreeable and silly trick of laughing whenever they 
speak. This and many other disagreeable habits are owing 
to false modesty at their first setting out in the world. 
They are ashamed in company, and so disconcerted that 
they do not know what they do, and try a thousand tricks 
to keep themselves in countenance; which tricks after- 
wards grow habitual to them. Some put their fingers in 
their nose, others scratch their head, others twirl their 
hats; in short, every awkward, ill-bred body has his trick. 
But the frequency does not justify the thing; and all these 
vulgar habits and awkwardnesses, though not criminal in- 
deed, are most carefully to be guarded against, as they are 
great bars in the way of the art of pleasing. Remember, 
that to please is .almost to prevail, or at least a necessary 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 43 

previous step to it. If you desire to make yourself 
considerable in the world (as, if you have any spirit, you 
do) it must be entirely your own doing; for I may very 
possibly be out of the world at the time you come into it. 
Your own rank and fortune will not assist you; your merit 
and your manners can alone raise you to figure and 
fortune. I have laid the foundations of them by the 
education which I have given you; but you must build 
the superstructure yourself. 



LETTER XXIII. 

DEAH BOY, London, April the 1st, 1748. 

Your health will continue while your temperance 
continues; and at your age nature takes sufficient care of 
the body, provided she is left to herself, and that intem- 
perance on one hand, or medicines on the other, do not 
break in upon her. But it is by no means so with the 
mind, which at your age particularly requires great and 
constant care, and some physic. Every quarter of an hour 
well or ill employed, will do it essential and lasting good 
or harm. It requires also a great deal of exercise to 
bring it to a state of health and vigor. Observe the 
difference there is between minds cultivated and minds 
uncultivated, and you will, I am sure, think that you 
cannot take too much pains, nor employ too much of your 
time, in the culture of your own. People are in 

general what they are made, by education and company, 
from fifteen to five-and-twenty; consider well, therefore, 
the importance of your next eight or nine years; your 



44 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

whole depends upon them. I will tell you sincerely my 
hopes and my fears concerning you. I fear that you 
neglect what are called little, though in truth they are 
very material, things; I mean a gentleness of manners, an 
engaging address, and an insinuating behavior: they are 
real and solid advantages, and none but those who do not 
know the world, treat them as trifles. I am told that you 
speak very quick, and not distinctly; this is a most 
ungraceful and disagreeable trick, which you know I have 
told you of a thousand times; pray attend carefully to the 
correction of it. An agreeable and distinct manner of 
speaking adds greatly to the matter; and I have known 
many a very good speech unregarded upon account of the 
disagreeable manner in which it has been delivered, and 
many an indifferent one applauded, for the contrary 
reason. Adieu. 



LETTEE XXIV. 

DEAR BOY, London, June 21st, 1748. 

Read what Cicero and Quintilian say of Enunciation, 
and see what a stress they lay upon the gracefulness of it; 
nay, Cicero goes further, and even maintains that a good 
figure is necessary for an Orator; and particularly that he 
must not be overgrown and clumsy. He shows by it that 
he knew mankind well, and knew the powers of an agree- 
able figure and a graceful manner. Men, as well as 
women, arc much oftener led by their hearts than by their 
understandings. The way to the heart is through the 
senses; please their eyes and their ears, and the work is 
half done. I have frequently known a man's fortune 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 45 

decided forever by his first address. If it is pleasing, 
people are hurried involuntarily into a persuasion that he 
has a merit, as, on the other hand, if it is ungraceful, they 
are immediately prejudiced against him; and unwilling to 
allow him the merit which it may be he has. Nor is this 
sentiment so unjust and unreasonable as at first it may 
seem; for if a man has parts he must know of what 
h)finite consequence it is to him to have a graceful 
manner of speaking and a genteel and pleasing address: 
he will cultivate and improve them to the utmost. 
What is the constant and just observation as to all actors 
upon the stage ? Is it not that those who have the best 
sense always speak the best, though they may happen not 
to have the best voices ? They will speak plainly, distinctly, 
and with the proper emphasis, be their voices ever so bad. 
Had Roscius spoken quick, thick, and ungracefully, I will 
answer for it, that Cicero would not have thought him 
worth the oration which he made in his favor. Words 
were given us to communicate our ideas by; and there 
must be something inconceivably absurd in uttering them 
in such a manner as that either people cannot understand 
them or will not desire to understand them. You will 
desire Mr. Harte that you may read aloud to him every 
day; and that he will interrupt and correct you ever time 
that you read too fast, do not observe the proper stops, or 
lay a wrong emphasis. You will take care to open your 
teeth when you speak; to articulate every word distinctly; 
and to beg of whomever you speak to, to remind and stop 
you, if ever you fall into the rapid and unintelligible 
mutter. You will even read aloud to yourself and tune 
your utterance to your own ear; and read at first much 



46 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

slower than you need to do, in order to correct yourself of 
that shameful trick of speaking faster than you ought. 
In short, you will make it your business, your study, and 
your pleasure, to speak well if you think right. There- 
fore, what I have said in this, and in my last, is more than 
sufficient, if you have sense; and ten times more would 
not be sufficient if you have not: so here I rest it. 

Next to graceful speaking, a genteel carriage, and a 
graceful manner of presenting yourself, are extremely 
necessary, for they are extremely engaging; and careless- 
ness in these points is much more unpardonable in a 
young fellow than affectation. It shows an offensive 
indifference about pleasing. I am told by one here 
who has seen you lately, that you are awkward 
in your motions, and negligent of your person: I am 
sorry for both; and so you will be, when it will be too 
late, if you continue so some time longer. Awkward- 
ness of carriage is very alienating; and a total negligence 
of dress, and air, is an impertinent insult upon custom and 
fashion. 

I will now conclude with suggesting one reflection to 
you, which is, that you should be sensible of your good 
fortune, in having one who interests himself enough in 
you to inquire into your faults, in order to inform you of 
them. Nobody but myself would be so solicitous, either 
to know or correct them; so that you might consequently 
be ignorant of them yourself; for our own self-love draws 
a thick veil between us and our faults. But when you 
hear yours from me, you may be sure that you hear them 
from one who, for your sake only, desires to correct them; 
from one whom you cannot suspect of any partiality but 



LOKD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 47 

in your favor; and from one who heartily wishes that his 
care of you, as a father, may in a little time render every 
care unnecessary but that of a friend. Adieu. 



LETTER XXY. 

DEAR BOY, London, July the 26th, 1748. 

There are two sorts of understandings; one of which 
hinders a man from ever being considerable, and the 
other commonly makes him ridiculous; I mean the lazy 
mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind. Yours, I hope, is 
neither. The lazy mind will not take the trouble of 
going to the bottom of anything, but, discouraged by the 
first difficulties (and everything worth knowing or having 
is attended with some), stops short, contents itself with 
easy, and consequently superficial, knowledge, and prefers 
a great degree of ignorance to a small degree of trouble. 
These people either think or represent most things as 
impossible, whereas few things are so to industry and 
activity. But difficulties seem to them impossibilities, or 
at least they pretend to think them so, by way of excuse 
for their laziness. An hour's attention to the same 
object is too laborious for them; they take everything in 
the light in which it first presents itself, never consider it 
in all its different views, and, in short, never think it 
thorough. The consequence of this is, that when they 
come to speak upon these subjects before people who have 
considered them with attention, they only discover their 
own ignorance and laziness, and lay themselves open to 
answers that put them in confusion. Do not, then, be 



48 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

discouraged by the first difficulties, but resolve to go to 
the bottom of all those things which every gentleman 
ought to know well. Such are languages, history, and 
geography ancient and modern; philosophy, rational logic, 
rhetoric; and, for you particularly, the constitution, and 
the civil and military state, of every country in Europe. 
This, I confess, is a pretty large circle of knowledge, 
attended with some difficulties, and requiring some 
trouble; which, however, an active and industrious mind 
will overcome, and be amply repaid by. The trifling and 
frivolous mind is always busied, but to little purpose; it 
takes little objects for great ones, and throws away upon 
trifles that time and attention which only important 
things deserve. Knickknacks, butterflies, shells, insects, 
etc., are the objects of their most serious researches. 
They contemplate the dress, not the characters, of the 
company they keep. They attend more to the decora- 
tions of a Play, than to the sense of it; and to the cere- 
monies of a Court, more than to its politics. Such an 
employment of time is an absolute loss of it. You have 
now, at most, three years to employ either well or ill; for 
as I have often told you, you will be all your life what 
you shall be three years hence. Then, reflect: Will you 
throw away this time, either in laziness, or in trifles ? Or 
will you not rather employ every moment of it in a man- 
ner that must so soon reward you, with so much pleasure, 
figure, and character? T cannot, I will not, doubt of your 
choice. Read only useful books; and never quit a sub- 
ject till you are thoroughly master of it, but read and 
inquire on till then. When you are in company, bring 
the conversation to some useful subject. Points ^)f his- 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 49 

tory, matters of literature, the customs of particular 
countries, the several Orders of Knighthood, as Teutonic, 
Maltese, etc., are surely better subjects of conversation 
than the weather, dress, or fiddle-faddle stories, that carry 
no information along with them. The characters of 
Kings, and great Men, are only to be learned in conversa- 
tion; for they are never fairly written during their lives. 
This, therefore, is an entertaining and instructive subject 
of conversation, and will likewise give you an opportunity 
of observing how very differently characters are given, 
from the different passions and views of those who give 
them. Never be ashamed nor afraid of asking questions; 
for if they lead to information, and if you accompany 
them with some excuse, you will never be reckoned an 
impertinent or rude questioner. All those things, in the 
common course of life, depend entirely upon the manner; 
and in that respect the vulgar saying is true, " That one 
man may better steal a horse, than another look over the 
hedge.' 5 There are few things that may not be said, in 
some manner or other; either in a seeming confidence, or 
a genteel irony, or introduced with wit: and one great 
part of the knowledge of the world consists in knowing 
when and where to make use of these different manners. 
The graces of the person, the countenance, and the way 
of speaking, contribute so much to this, that I am con- 
vinced the very same thing said by a genteel person, in 
an engaging way, and gracefully and distinctly spoken, 
would please; which would shock, if muttered out by an 
awkward figure, with a sullen, serious countenance. The 
Poets always represent Venus as attended by the three 
Graces, to intimate that even Beauty will not do without. 



50 LOUD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

I think they should have given Minerva three also; for 
without them, I am sure, learning is very unattractive. 
Invoke them, then, distinctly, to accompany all your 
words and motions. Adieu. 



LETTER XXVI. 

DEAR BOY, Bath, October the 19th, 1718. 

Having in my last pointed out what sort of company 
you should keep, I will now give you some rules for your 
conduct in it; rules which my own experience and observa- 
tion enable me to lay down, and communicate to you with 
some degree of confidence. 

Talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not 
please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay 
your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company; 
this being one of the very few cases in which people do not 
care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he 
has wherewithal to pay. 

Tell stories very seldom, and absolutely never but where 
they are very apt and very short. Omit every circum- 
stance that is not material, and beware of digressions. To 
have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of 
imagination. 

Never hold anybody by the button, or the hand, in 
order to be heard out: for, if people are not willing to 
hear you, you had much better hold your tongue than 
them. 

Most long talkers single out some one unfortunate man 
in company (commonly him whom they observe to be the 
most silent, or their next neighbor) to whisper, or at least, 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 51 

in a half voice, to convey a continuity of words to. This 
is excessively ill-bred, and, in some degree, a fraud, 
conversation stock being a joint and common property. 

Avoid as much as you can, in mixed companies, 
argumentative, polemical conversations; which, though 
they should not, yet certainly do, indispose, for a time, 
the contending parties towards each other; and, if the 
controversy grows warm and noisy, endeavor to put an end 
to it by some genteel levity or joke. I quieted such a 
conversational hubbub once, by representing to them that 
though I was persuaded none there present would repeat, 
out of company, what passed in it, yet I could not answer 
for the discretion of the passengers in the street, who must 
necessarily hear all that was said. 

Above all things, and upon all occasions, avoid speaking 
of yourself, if it be possible. Such is the natural pride 
and vanity of our hearts, that it perpetually breaks out, 
even in people of the best parts, in all the various modes 
and figures of the egotism. 

But when historically you are obliged to mention your- 
self, take care not to drop one single word that can 
directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. 
Be your character what it will, it will be known; and 
nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine 
that anything you can say yourself will varnish your 
defects, or add luster to your perfections; but, on the 
contrary, it may, and nine times in ten, will make the 
former more glaring, and the latter obscure. If you are 
silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, 
nor ridicule will obstruct or allay the applause which you 
may really deserve ; but if you publish your own panegyric. 



52 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

upon any occasion or in any shape whatsoever, and how- 
ever artfully dressed or disguised, they will all conspire 
against you, and you will be disappointed of the very end 
you aim at. 

Take care never to seem dark and mysterious; which is 
not only a very unamiable character, but a very suspicious 
one, too; if you seem mysterious with others, they will be 
really so with you, and you will know nothing. A 
prudent reserve is therefore as necessary as a seeming 
openness is prudent, f Always look people in the face when 
you speak to them; the not doing it is thought to imply 
conscious guilt; besides that, you lose the advantage of 
observing by their countenances what impression your 
discourse makes upon them. In order to know people's 
real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my 
ears; for they can say whatever they have a mind I should 
hear, but they can seldom help looking what they have no 
intention that I should know. 

Neither retail nor receive scandal, willingly; for though 
the defamation of others may, for the present, gratify the 
malignity or the pride of our hearts, cool reflection will 
draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a dis- 
position; and in the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, 
the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief. 

Mimicry, which is the common and favorite amusement 
of little, low minds, is in the utmost contempt with great 
ones. It is the lowest and most illiberal of all buffoonery. 
Pray neither practice it yourself, nor applaud it in others. 
Resides that, the person mimicked is insulted; and, as I 
have often observed to you before, an insult is never 
forgiven. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 53 

One word only as to swearing; and that I hope and 
believe is more than is necessary. Yon may sometimes 
hear some people in good company interlard their discourse 
with oaths, by way of embellishment, as they think; but 
you must observe, too, that those who do so are never those 
who contribute, in any degree, to give that company the 
denomination of good company. They are always sub- 
alterns, or people of low education; for that practice, 
besides that it has no one temptation to plead, is as silly 
and as illiberal as it is wicked. 



LETTER XXVII. 

DEAR BOY, London, January the 10th, 1749. 

A fool squanders away, without credit or advantage 
to himself, more than a man of sense spends with both. 
The latter employs his money as he does his time, and 
never spends a shilling of the one, nor a minute of the 
other, but in something that is either useful or rationally 
pleasing to himself or others. The former buys whatever 
he does not want, and does not pay for what he does 
want. He cannot withstand the charms of a toy-shop ; 
snuff-boxes, watches, heads of canes, etc., are his destruc- 
tion. His servants and tradesmen conspire with his own 
indolence to cheat him ; and in a very little time, he is 
astonished, in the midst of all his ridiculous superfluities, 
to find himself in want of all the real comforts and neces- 
saries of life. Without care and method, the largest fort- 
une will not, and with them, almost the smallest will, 
supply all necessary expense. As far as you can possibly, 



54 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

pay ready money for everything you buy, and avoid bills. 
Pay that money, too, yourself, and not through the hands 
of any servant. Where you must have bills (as for meat 
and drink, clothes, etc.), pay them regularly every month, 
and with your own hand. Never, from a mistaken 
economy, buy a thing you do not want, because it is 
cheap ; or from a silly pride, because it is dear. Keep an 
account, in a book, of all that you receive, and of all that 
you pay, for no man who knows what he receives and 
what he pays ever runs out. I do not mean that you 
should keep an account of the shillings and half-crowns 
which you may spend for trifles ; leave such ; but remem- 
ber, in economy, as well as in every other part of life, to 
have the proper attention to proper objects, and the proper 
contempt for little ones. A strong mind sees things in 
their true proportions : a weak one views them through a 
magnifying medium ; which, like the microscope, makes 
an elephant of a flea ; magnifies all little objects, but can- 
not receive great ones. I have known many a man pass 
for a miser, by saving a penny, and wrangling for two- 
pence, who was undoing himself at the same time, by 
living above his income, and not attending to essential 
articles which were above his capacity. The sure charac- 
teristic of a sound and strong mind is, to find in every- 
thing those certain bounds, upon which virtue, either one 
side or the other, cannot rest. These boundaries are 
marked out by a very fine line, which only good sense and 
attention can discover ; it is much too fine for vulgar 
eyes. In Manners, this line is Good Breeding ; beyond 
it, is troublesome ceremony ; short of it, is unbecoming 
negligence and inattention. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS, 55 



LETTER XXVIII. 

DEAR Boy, London, May the 15th, 1749. 

While you are in danger, I shall be in fear ; and you 
are in danger at Turin. I am informed there are now 
many English at the Academy at Turin. Who they are, 
I do not know ; but I well know the general ill conduct, 
the indecent behavior, and the illiberal views of my 
young countrymen abroad ; especially wherever they are 
in numbers together. Ill example is of itself dangerous 
enough ; but those who give it seldom stop there : they 
add their infamous exhortations and invitations ; and, if 
these fail, they have recourse to ridicule ; which is harder 
for one of your age and inexperience to withstand, than 
either of the former. Be upon your guard, therefore, 
against these batteries, which will all be played upon you. 
You are not sent abroad to converse with your own 
countrymen : among them, in general, you will get little 
knowledge, no languages, and, I am sure, no manners. I 
desire that you will form no connections, nor (what they 
impudently call) friendships, with these people : which 
are, in truth, only combinations and conspiracies against 
good morals and good manners. There is commonly, in 
young people, a facility that makes them unwilling to 
refuse anything that is asked of them ; a false modesty, 
that makes them ashamed to refuse ; and, at the same 
time, an ambition of pleasing and shining in the com- 
pany they keep ; these several causes produce the best 
effect in good company, but the very worst in bad. If 



56 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

people had no vices but their own, few would have so 
many as they have. For my own part, I would sooner 
wear other people's clothes than their vices ; and they 
would sit upon me just as well. I hope you will have 
none ; but, if ever you have, I beg at least they may be 
all your own. Vices of adoption are, of all others, the 
most disgraceful and unpardonable. There are degrees 
in vices, as well as in virtues ; and I must do my country- 
men the justice to say, they generally take their vices in 
the lowest degree. By such conduct and in such company 
abroad, they come home, the unimproved, illiberal, and 
ungentlemanlike creatures, that one daily sees them ; that 
is, in the Park, and in the streets, for one never meets 
them in good company ; where they have neither manners 
to present themselves, nor merit to be received. But, 
with the manners of footmen and grooms, they assume 
their dress, too; for you must have observed them in the 
streets here, in dirty blue frocks, with oaken sticks in 
their hands, and their hair greasy and unpowdered, tucked 
up under their hats of an enormous size. Thus finished 
and adorned by their travels, they become the disturbers 
of playhouses ; they break the windows, and commonly 
the landlords, of the taverns where they drink ; and are 
at once the support, the terror, and the victims, of the in- 
famous places they frequent. These poor mistaken people 
think they shine, and so they do, indeed ; but it is as 
putrefaction shines, in the dark. 

I am not now preaching to you, like an old fellow, 
upon either religious or moral texts ; I am persuaded you 
do not want the best instructions of that kind : but I am 
advising you as a friend, as a man of the world, as one 



w] 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 57 



who would not have you old while you are young, but 
would have you take all the pleasures that reason points 
out, and that decency warrants. I will therefore suppose, 
for argument's sake (for upon no other account can it be 
supposed), that all the vices above-mentioned were per- 
fectly innocent in themselves ; they would still degrade, 
vilify, and sink those who practiced them ; would obstruct 
their rising in the world, by debasing their characters ; 
and give them a low turn of mind and manners, absolutely 
inconsistent with their making any figure in upper life, 
and great business. 

What I have now said, together with your own good 
sense, is, I hope, sufficient to arm you against the seduc- 
tion, the invitations, or the profligate exhortations (for I 
cannot call them temptations) of those unfortunate young 
people. On the other hand, when they would engage you 
in these schemes, content yourself with a decent but 
steady refusal ; avoid controversy upon such plain points. 
You are too young to convert them, and, I trust, too wise 
to be converted by them. Shun them, not only in reality, 
but even in appearance, if you would be well received in 
good company ; for people will always be shy of receiving 
any man who comes from a place where the plague rages, 
let him look ever so healthy. 

Pray send for the best operator for the teeth, at Turin, 
where, I suppose there is some famous one ; and let him 
put yours in perfect order ; and then take care to keep 
them so, afterwards, yourself. You had very good teeth, 
and I hope they are so still ; but even those who have bad 
ones should keep them clean ; for a dirty mouth is, in my 
mind, ill manners. In short, neglect nothing that can 



58 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

possibly please. A thousand nameless little things, which 
nobody can describe, but which everybody feels, conspire 
to form that whole of pleasing ; as the several pieces of a 
mosaic work, though separately of little beauty or value, 
when properly joined, form those beautiful figures which 
please everybody. A look, a gesture, an attitude, a tone 
of voice, all bear their parts in the great work of pleasing. 

What I have said, with regard to my countrymen in 
general, does not extend to them all without exception. 

Adieu, my dear child ! Consider seriously the impor- 
tance of the two next years, to your character, your figure, 
and your fortune. 



LETTER XXIX. 

DEAR BOY, London, September the 22nd, 1749. 

He told me, then, that in company you were frequently 
most provohingly inattentive and absent-minded. That 
you came into a room and presented yourself very 
awkwardly; that at table you constantly threw down 
knives, forks, napkins, bread, etc., and that you neglected 
your person and dress, to a degree unpardonable at any 
age, and much more so at yours. 

These things how immaterial soever they may seem to 
people who do not know the world and the nature of man- 
kind, give me, who know them to be exceedingly material, 
very great concern. I have long distrusted you, and 

He told me : Sir Charles Williams, a.friend, who had seen the son and 
reported his impressions of him to Lord Chesterfield. He spoke with 
admiration " of the extent and correctness of your knowledge," but with 
his manners and bearing, he was less pleased, as appears above. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 59 

therefore frequently admonished you, upon these articles; 
and I tell you plainly that I shall not be easy till I hear a 
very different account of them. I know no one thing more 
offensive to a company than that inattention and distraction. 
It is showing them the utmost contempt, and people never 
forget contempt. Xo man is absent-minded with the man 
he fears, or the woman he loves; which is a proof that 
every man can get the better of that distraction when he 
thinks it worth his while to do so; and take my word for 
it, it is always worth his while. For my own part I would 
rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent 
one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he 
shows me no contempt; whereas the absent man, silently 
indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me 
worth his attention. Besides, can an absent man make any 
observations upon the characters, customs, and manners 
of the company? No. He may be in the best companies 
all his lifetime (if they will admit him, which, if I were 
they, I would not) and never be one jot the wiser. I never 
will converse with an absent man; one may as well talk 
to a deaf one. It is in truth a practical blunder to address 
ourselves to a man, who we see plainly neither hears, 
minds, nor understands us. Moreover, I aver that no man 
is, in any degree, fit for either business or conversation, 
who cannot, and does not, direct and command his atten- 
tion to the present object, be that what it will. You know 
by experience that I grudge no expense in your education, 
but I will positively not keep you a Flapper. You may 
read in Dr. Swift the description of these Flappers, and the 
use they were of to your friends the Laputans, whose minds 
(Gulliver says) are so taken up with intense speculations 



60 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

that they neither can speak nor attend to the discourses of 
others, without being roused by some external action upon 
the organs of speech and hearing; for which reason those 
people who are able to afford it always keep a Flapper in 
their family as one of their domestics, nor ever walk about 
or make visits without him. This Flapper is likewise 
employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and 
upon occasion to give a soft flap upon his eyes, because 
he is ahvays so ivrapped up in cogitation that he is in 
manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and 
bouncing his head against every post, and, in the streets, 
of jostling others, or being jostled into the kennel him- 
self. In short, I give you fair warning that when we 
meet, if you are absent in mind, I will soon be absent 
in body, for it will be impossible for me to stay in 
the room; and if at table you throw down your knife, 
plate, bread, etc., and hack the wing of a chicken for half 
an hour without being able to cut it off, and your sleeve 
all the time in another dish, I must rise from table to 
escape the fever you would certainly give me. You have 

often seen, and I have as often made you observe, L 's 

distinguished inattention and awkwardness. Wrapped up, 
like a Laputan, in intense thought, and possibly sometimes 
in no thought at all; which I believe is very often the case 
of absent people; he does not know his most intimate 
acquaintance by sight, or answers them as if he were at 
cross-purposes. He leaves his hat in one room, his sword 
in another, and would leave his shoes in a third, if his 
buckles, though awry, did not save them; his legs and 
arms, by his awkward management of them, seem to be 
dislocated; and his head, always hanging upon one or 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 61 

other of his shoulders, seems to have received the first 
stroke upon a block. I sincerely value and esteem him 
for his Parts, Learning, and Virtue; but for the soul of 
me I cannot love him in company. This will be universally 
the case in common life, of every inattentive, awkward 
man, let his real merit and knowledge be ever so great. 
When I was of your age, I desired to shine, as far as I was 
able, in every part of life; and was as attentive to my 
Manners, my Dress, and my Air, in company on evenings, 
as to my Books and my Tutor in the mornings. A young 
fellow should be ambitious to shine in everything; and, of 
the two, always rather overdo than underdo. These 
things are by no means trifles; they are of infinite conse- 
quence to those who are to be thrown into the great 
world, and who would make a figure or a fortune in it. 
It is not sufficient to deserve well; one must please well 
too. Awkward, disagreeable merit will never carry any- 
body far. I should be sorry if you were an egregious fop ; 
but I protest that of the • two, I would rather have you a 
Fop than a Sloven. I think negligence in my own dress, 
even at my age, when certainly I expect no advantages 
from my dress, would be indecent with regard to others. 
I have done with fine clothes; but I will have my plain 
clothes fit me, and made like other people's. In the 
evenings, I recommend to you the company of women of 
fashion, who have a right to attention, and will be paid it. 
Their company will smooth your manners, and give you a 
habit of attention and respect; of which you will find the 
advantage among men. 



62 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 



LETTER XXX. 

DEAR BOY, London, September the 27th, 1749. 

A vulgar, ordinary way of thinking, acting, or 
speaking, implies a low education, and a habit of low 
company. Young people contract it at school, or among 
servants, with whom they are too often used to converse; 
but, after they frequent good company, they must want 
attention and observation very much, if they do not lay it 
quite aside. And indeed if they do not, good company 
will be very apt to lay them aside. The various kinds of 
vulgarisms are infinite; I cannot pretend to point them 
out to you; but I will give you some samples, by which 
you may guess at the rest. 

A vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and 
impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be 
slighted, thinks everything that is said meant for him; 
if the company happens to laugh, he is persuaded they 
laugh at him; he grows angry and testy, says some thing- 
very impertinent, and draws himself into a scrape, by 
showing what he calls a proper spirit, and asserting 
himself. A man of fashion does not suppose himself to 
be either the sole or principal object of the thoughts, 
looks, or words of the company; and never suspects that 
he is either slighted or laughed at, unless he is conscious 
that lie deserves it. And if (which very seldom happens) 
the company is absurd or ill-bred enough to do either, he 
does not care twopence, unless the insult be so o T oss and 
plain as to require satisfaction of another kind. As lie is 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 63 

above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them; 
and, wherever they are concerned, rather acquiesces than 
wrangles. A vulgar man's conversation alwaj^s savors 
strongly of the lowness of his education and company. 
It turns chiefly upon his domestic affairs, his servants, 
the excellent order he keeps in his own family, and the 
little anecdotes of the neighborhood; all which he relates 
with emphasis, as interesting matters. He is a man gossip. 

Vulgarism in language is the next and distinguishing 
characteristic of bad company and a bad education. A 
man of fashion avoids nothing with more care than that. 
Proverbial expressions and trite sayings are the flowers of 
the rhetoric of a vulgar man. Would he say that men 
differ in their tastes, he both supports and adorns that 
opinion by the good old saying, as he respectfully calls it, 
that what is one man's Meat is another man's Poison. If 
anybody attempts being smart, as he calls it, upon him, he 
gives them Tit for Tat, ay, that he does. He has always 
some favorite word for the time being, which, for the sake 
of using often, he commonly abuses. Such as vastly angry, 
vastly kind, vastly handsome, and vastly ugly. A man 
of fashion never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar 
aphorisms, uses neither favorite words nor hard words; 
but takes great care to speak very correctly and gram- 
matically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according 
to the usage of the best companies. 

An awkward address, ungraceful attitudes and actions, 
and a certain left-handedness (if I may use that word), 
loudly proclaim low education and low company; for it is 
impossible to suppose that a man can have frequented good 
company, without having caught something, at least, of 



64 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

their air and motions. A newly raised man is distinguished 
in a regiment by his awkwardness; but he must be impen- 
etrably dull if, in a month or two's time, he cannot perform 
at least the common manual exercise, and look like a 
soldier. The very accoutrements of a man of fashion are 
grievous encumbrances to a vulgar man. He is at a loss 
what to do with his hat, when it is not upon his head; 
his cane (if unfortunately he wears one) is at perpetual 
war with every cup of tea or coffee he drinks; destroys 
them first, and then accompanies them in their fall. His 
sword is formidable only to his own legs, which would 
possibly carry him fast enough out of the way of any 
sword but his own. His clothes fit him so ill, and 
constrain him so much, that he seems rather their prisoner 
than their proprietor. He presents himself in company 
like a criminal in a court of justice; his very air condemns 
him; and people of fashion will no more connect them- 
selves with the one, than people of character will with the 
other. This repulse drives and sinks him into low com- 
pany; a gulf from whence no man, after a certain age, 
ever emerged. Adieu. 






LETTER XXXI. 

DEAR Boy, London, November the 24th, 1749. 

Every rational being (I take it for granted) proposes 
to himself some object more important than mere respira- 
tion and obscure animal existence. He desires to 
distinguish himself among his fellow-creatures; and. 
intent upon some object, either of brilliant deeds or 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 65 

honorable conduct, he seeks fame. Caesar, when embark- 
ing in a storm, said that it was not necessary he should 
live, but that it was absolutely necessary he should get to 
the place to which he was going. And Pliny leaves 
mankind this only alternative; either of doing what 
deserves to be written, or of writing what deserves to be 
read. As for those who do neither, I consider their life 
and death of equal value, since there is silence concerning 
each. You have, I am convinced, one or both of these 
objects in view; but you must know and use the necessary 
means, or your pursuit will be vain and frivolous. In 
either case, knowledge is the fountain head ; but it is by 
no means all. 

Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so 
just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will 
appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as 
your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if 
dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters. 

It is a very true saying, that a man must be born a Poet, 
but that he may make himself an Orator; and the very 
first principle of an Orator is, to speak his own language 
particularly, with the utmost purity and elegancy. A 
man will be forgiven even great errors in a foreign 
language, but in his own even the least slips are justly 
laid hold of and ridiculed. 

A person of the House of Commons, speaking two years 
ago upon naval affairs, asserted that we had then the finest 
navy upon the face of the yeartlx. This happy mixture of 
blunder and vulgarism, you may easily imagine, was 
matter of immediate ridicule; but I can assure you that 
it continues so still, and will be remembered as long as he 



66 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

lives and speaks. Another, speaking in defence of a 
gentleman upon whom a censure was moved, happily 
said, that he thought that gentleman was more liable to 
be thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I 
presume, that liable can never be used in a good sense. 

You have with you three or four of the best English 
Authors, Dry den, Atterbury, and Swift; read them with 
the utmost care, and with a particular view to their 
language; and they may possibly correct that curious 
infelicity of diction, which you acquired at Westminster. 
I need not tell you how attentive the Romans and 
Greeks, particularly the Athenians, were to this object. 
It is also a study among the Italians and the French, 
witness their respective Academies and Dictionaries, for 
improving and fixing their languages. Cicero says, very 
truly, that it is glorious to excel other men in that very 
article, in which men excel brutes; speech. 

Constant experience has shown me, that great purity 
and elegance of style, with a graceful elocution, cover a 
multitude of faults, in either a speaker or a writer. 

You have read Quintilian, the best book in the world to 
form an Orator; pray read Cicero On Oratory, the best 
book in the world to finish one. Translate and retranslate, 
from and to Latin, Greek, and English; make yourself a 
pure and elegant English style; it requires nothing but 
application. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 67 



LETTEE XXXII. 

DEAR BOY, London, December, the 9th, 1749. 

It is now about forty years since I have spoken or 
written one single word without giving myself at least 
one moment's time to consider whether it was a good 
one or a bad one, and whether I could not find out a 
better in its place. An inharmonious and rugged period, 
at this time, shocks my ears. I will freely and truly own 
to you, without either vanity or false modesty, that what- 
ever reputation I have acquired as a speaker is more owing 
to my constant attention to my diction, than to my matter, 
which was necessarily just the same of other people's. 

It is in Parliament that I have set my heart upon your 
making a figure ; it is there that I want to have you 
justly proud of yourself, and to make me justly proud of 
you. This means that you must be a good speaker there ; 
I use the word must, because I know you may if you will. 
The vulgar, who are always mistaken, look upon a Speaker 
and a Comet with the same astonishment and admiration, 
taking them both for preternatural phenomena. This 
error discourages many young men from attempting that 
character ; and good speakers are willing to have their 
talent considered as something very extraordinary, if not 
a peculiar gift of God to His elect. But let you and me 
analyze and simplify this good speaker ; let us strip him 
of those adventitious plumes, with which his own pride, 
and the ignorance of others have decked him, and we 
shall find the true definition of him to be no more than 



68 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

this : — A man of good common sense, who reasons justly, 
and expresses himself elegantly on that subject upon 
which he speaks. There is surely no witchcraft in this. 
A man of sense, without a superior and astonishing degree 
of parts, will not talk nonsense upon any subject ; nor will 
he, if he has the least taste or application, talk inelegantly. 
What, then, does all this mighty art and mystery of 
speaking in Parliament amount to ? Why, no more than 
this, That the man who speaks in the House of Com- 
mons, speaks in that House, and to four hundred people, 
that opinion, upon a given subject, which he would make 
no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round 
the fire, or at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever ; 
better judges, perhaps, and severer critics of what he says, 
than any fourteen gentlemen of the House of Commons. 

I have spoken frequently in Parliament, and not always 
without some applause ; and therefore I can assure you, 
from my experience, that there is very little in it. The ele- 
gancy of the style, and the turn of the periods, make the 
chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or 
two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they 
will retain and repeat ; and they will go home as well 
satisfied as people do from an Opera, humming all the way 
one or two favorite tunes that have struck their ears and 
were easily caught. 

Cicero, conscious that he was at the top of his profes- 
sion (for in his time Eloquence was a profession), in order 
to set himself off, defines, in his Treatise Concerning 
Oratory, an Orator to be such a 'man as never was, or 
never will be ; and, by this fallacious argument, says, that 
he must know every art and science whatsoever, or liow 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 69 

shall he speak upon them? But with submission to so 
great an authority, my definition of an Orator is extremely 
different from, and I believe much truer than his. I call 
that man an Orator who reasons justly, and expresses him- 
himself elegantly upon whatever subject he treats. 

Thus I write whatever occurs to me, that I think may 
contribute either to form or inform you. May my labor 
not be in vain ! and it will not, if you will but have half 
the concern for yourself that I have for you. Adieu. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

MY DEAR FRIEXD, London, January the 18th, 1750. 

Whex you see a man, whose first address or approach 
strikes you, prepossesses you in his favor, and makes you 
entertain a good opinion of him, you do not know why ; 
analyze and examine within yourself the several parts 
that composed it ; and you will generally find it to be the 
result, the happy assemblage of modesty unembarrassed, 
respect without timidity, a genteel but unaffected attitude 
of body and limbs, an open, cheerful, but unsmirking 
countenance, and a dress, by no means negligent, and yet 
not foppish. Copy him, then, not servilely, but as some 
of the greatest masters of painting have copied others ; 
insomuch that their copies have been equal to the 
originals, both as to beauty and freedom. When you see 
a man, who is universally allowed to shine as an agreeable, 
well-bred man, and a fine gentleman, attend to him, watch 
him carefully ; observe in what manner he addresses him- 
self to his superiors, how he lives with his equals, and 



70 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

how he treats his inferiors. Mind his turn of conversa- 
tion, in the several situations of morning visits, the table, 
and the evening amusements. Imitate, without mimick- 
ing him ; and be his duplicate, but not his ape. You will 
find that he takes care never to say or do anything that 
can be construed into a slight or a negligence, or that can, 
in any degree, mortify people's vanity and self-love : on the 
contrary, you will perceive that he makes people pleased 
with him, by making them first pleased with themselves : 
he shows respect, regard, esteem, and attention, where 
they are severally proper ; he sows them with care, and 
he reaps them in plenty. 

These amiable accomplishments are all to be acquired 
by use and imitation ; for we are, in truth, more than half 
what we are by imitation. The great point is, to choose 
good models, and to study them with care. People insen- 
sibly contract, not only the air, the manners, and the 
vices of those with whom they commonly converse, but 
their virtues, too, and even their way of thinking. This 
is so true, that I have known very plain understandings 
catch a certain degree of wit, by constantly conversing 
with those who had a great deal. Persist, therefore, in 
keeping the best company, and you will insensibly be- 
come like them ; but if you add attention and observa- 
tion, you will very soon be one of them. This inevitable 
contagion of company shows you the necessity of keeping 
the best, and avoiding all other ; for in every one some- 
thing will stick. 

I here subjoin a list of all those necessary ornamental 
accomplishments (without which, no man living can 
either please, or rise in the world), which hitherto I fear 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 71 

you want, and which only require your care and attention 
to possess. 

To speak elegantly, whatever language you speak in ; 
without which nobody will hear you with pleasure, and, 
consequently, you will speak to very little purpose. 

An agreeable and distinct elocution ; without which 
nobody will hear you with patience ; this everybody may 
acquire, who is not born with some imperfection in the 
organs of speech. You are not ; and therefore it is 
wholly in your power. You need take much less pains 
for it than Demosthenes did. 

A distinguished politeness of manners and address ; 
which common sense, observation, good company, and 
imitation, will infallibly give you, if you will accept of it. 
Adieu. 



LETTEE XXXIV. 

My DEAR FRIEXD, London, February the 5th, 1750. 

Very few people are good economists of their Fort- 
une, and still fewer of their Time; and yet, of the two, 
the latter is the more precious. I heartily wish you to be 
a good economist of both; and you are now of an age to 
begin to think seriously of these two important articles. 
Young people are apt to think they have so much time 
before them, that they may squander what they please of 
it, and yet have enough left; as very great fortunes have 
frequently seduced people to a ruinous profusion. Fatal 
mistakes, always repented of, but always too late ! Old 
Mr. Lowndes, the famous secretary of the Treasury, used 
to say, Take care of the pence, and the pounds ivill take care 



72 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

of themselves. To this maxim, which he not only 
preached, but practiced, his two grandsons, at this time, 
owe the very considerable fortunes that he left them. 

This holds equally true as to time; and I most earnestly 
recommend to you the care of those minutes and quarters 
of hours, in the course of the day, which people think too 
short to deserve their attention; and yet, if summed up at 
the end of the year, would amount to a very considerable 
portion of time. For example; you are to be at such a 
place at twelve, by appointment; you go out at eleven, to 
make two or three visits first; those persons are not at 
home: instead of sauntering away that immediate time at 
a coffee-house, and possibly alone, return home, write a 
letter, beforehand, for the ensuing post, or take up a good 
book. Stick to the best established books in every 
language; the celebrated Poets, Historians, Orators, or 
Philosophers. 

Many people lose a great deal of their time by laziness; 
they loll and yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that 
they have not time to begin anything then, and that it will 
do as well another time. This is a most unfortunate dis- 
position, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge 
and business. If ever you propose commanding with 
dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence. Never 
put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 

Dispatch is the soul of business ; and nothing contrib- 
utes more to Dispatch, than Method. Lay down a 
method for everything, and stick to it inviolably, as far as 
unexpected incidents may allow. Fix one certain hour 
and day in the week for your accounts, and keep them 
together in their proper order: by which means they will 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 73 

require very little time, and you can never be much 
cheated. Whatever letters and papers you keep, docket 
and tie them up in their respective classes, so that you 
may instantly have recourse to any one. Lay down a 
method also for your reading, for which you allot a 
certain share of your mornings; let it be in a consistent 
and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and 
unmethodical manner, in which many people read scraps 
of different authors, upon different subjects. Keep a 
useful and short commonplace book of what you read, to 
help your memory only, and not for pedantic quotations. 
Never read History without having maps, and a chrono- 
logical book, or tables, lying by you, and constantly 
recurred to; without which, History is only a confused 
heap of facts. One method more I recommend to you, 
by which I have found great benefit, even in the most 
dissipated part of my life; that is, to rise early, and at the 
same hour every morning, how late soever jou may have 
sat up the night before. This secures you an hour or 
two, at least, of reading or reflection, before the common 
interruptions of the morning begin; and it will save your 
constitution, by forcing you to go to bed early. 

You will say, it may be, as many young people would, 
that all this order and method is very troublesome, only 
fit for dull people, and a disagreeable restraint upon the 
noble spirit and fire of youth. I deny it; and assert, on 
the contrary, that it will procure you both more time and 
more taste for your pleasures; and so far from being 
troublesome to you, that after you have pursued it a 
month it would be troublesome to you to lay it aside. 
Business whets the appetite, and gives a taste to pleasures, 



74 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

as exercise does to food: and business can never be done 
without method: it raises the spirits for pleasure; and a 
theater, a ball, an assembly, will much more sensibly 
affect a man who has employed, than a man who has lost, 
the preceding part of the day. Adieu. 



LETTEE XXXV. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, London, April the 30th, 1750. 

Real merit of any kind, if it exists, cannot long be 
concealed; it will be discovered, and nothing can depre- 
ciate it but a man's exhibiting it himself. It may not 
always be rewarded as it ought; but it will always be 
known. Take great care never to tell in one company 
what you see or hear in another, much less to divert the 
present company at the expense of the last; but let discre- 
tion and secrecy be known parts of your character. They 
will carry you much farther, and much safer, than more 
shining talents. 



LETTER XXXVI. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, London, July the 9th, 1750. 

I should not deserve that appellation in return from 
you, if I did not freely and explicitly inform you of 
every corrigible defect, which I may either hear of, 
suspect, or at any time discover in you. Those who in 
the common course of the world will call themselves 
your friends, or whom, according to the common notions 
of friendship, you may possibly think such, will never 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 75 

tell you of your faults, still less of your weaknesses. 
But on the contrary, more desirous to make you their 
friend than to prove themselves yours, they will flatter 
both, and, in truth, not be sorry for either. Interiorly, 
most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends. 
The useful and essential part of friendship to you is re- 
served singly for Mr. Harte and myself ; our relations to 
you stand pure, and unsuspected of all private views. In 
whatever w^e say to you, we can have no interest but 
yours. We can have no competition, no jealousy, no secret 
envy or malignity. We are therefore authorized to repre- 
sent, advise, and remonstrate ; and your reason must tell 
you that you ought to attend to and believe us. 

Be your productions ever so good, they will be of no use, 
if you stifle and strangle them in their birth. The best 
compositions of Corelli, if ill executed, and played out of 
tune, instead of touching, as they do w^hen well per- 
formed, would only excite the indignation of the hearers, 
when murdered by an unskilful performer. But to murder 
your own productions, and that in public, is a Medean 
cruelty, which Horace absolutely forbids. Remember of 
what importance Demosthenes, and one of the Gracchi, 
thought enunciation; read what stress Cicero and Quinti- 
lian lay upon it ; even the herb-women at Athens were 
correct judges of it. Oratory with all its graces, that of 
enunciation in particular, is full as necessary in our 
government, as it ever was in Greece or Rome. No man 
can make a fortune or a figure in this country, without 
speaking, and speaking well, in public. If you will per- 
suade, you must first please ; and if you will please, you 
Me-de'-an: after the fashion of Me-de'-a. 



76 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

must tune your voice to harmony ; you must articulate 
every syllable distinctly ; your emphasis and cadences 
must be strongly and properly marked ; and the whole to- 
gether must be graceful and engaging ; if you do not 
speak in that manner, you had much better not speak at all. 
Read aloud, though alone, and read articulately and dis- 
tinctly, as if you were reading in public, and on the most 
important occasion. Recite pieces of eloquence, declaim 
scenes of tragedies, to Mr. Harte, as if he were a numerous 
audience. If there is any particular consonant which 
you have a difficulty in articulating, as I think you had 
with the i2, utter it millions and millions of times, till 
you have uttered it right. Never speak quick, till you 
have first learned to speak well. In short, lay aside every 
book and every thought, that does not directly tend to 
this great object, absolutely decisive of your future fortune 
and figure. 

The next thing necessary in your destination is, writing 
correctly, elegantly, and in a good hand, too ; in which 
three particulars, I am sorry to tell you that you hitherto 
fail. Your handwriting is a very bad one, and would 
make a wretched figure in an office-book of letters, or 
even in a lady's pocket-book. But that fault is easily 
cured by care, since every man who has the use of his 
eyes and of his right hand, ... As to the correctness and 
elegancy of your writing, attention to grammar does the 
one, and to the best authors the other. 

Thus I have, with the truth and freedom of the ten- 
derest affection, told you all your defects, at least all that 
I know or have heard of. They are all very curable, 
they must be cured, and 1 am sure you will cure them. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 77 

That once clone, nothing remains for you to acquire, or for 
me to wish you, but the turn, the manners, the address, 
and the graces of the polite world ; which experience, ob- 
servation, and good company will insensibly give you. 
Few people at your age have read, seen, and known so 
much as you have, and consequently few are so near as 
yourself to what I call perfection, by which I only mean 
being very near as well as the best. Far, therefore, from 
being discouraged by what you still want, what you already 
have should encourage you to attempt, and convince you 
that by attempting you mil inevitably obtain it. The 
difficulties which you have surmounted were much greater 
than any you have now to encounter. Till very lately 
your # way has been only through thorns and briers ; the ' 
few that now remain are mixed with roses. Pleasure is 
now the principal remaining part of your education. It 
will soften and polish your manners ; it will make you 
pursue and at last overtake the graces. Pleasure is 
necessarily reciprocal ; no one feels who does not at the 
same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. 
What pleases you in others, will in general please them 
in you. Paris is indisputably the seat of the graces ; they 
will even court you, if you are not too coy. Frequent 
and observe the best companies there, and you will soon 
be naturalized among them ; you will soon find how 
particularly attentive they are to the correctness and 
elegancy of their language, and to the graces of their 
enunciation ; they would even call the understanding of 
a man in question, who should neglect or not know the 
infinite advantages arising from them. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 



LETTEE XXXVII. 

My DEAR FRIEND, London, November the 12th, 1750. 

You will possibly think that this letter turns upon 
strange, little, trifling objects; and you will think right, if 
you consider them separately; but if you take them aggre- 
gately you will be convinced that as parts, which conspire 
to form that whole, called the exterior of a man of fashion, 
they are of importance. I shall not dwell now upon those 
personal graces, that liberal air, and that engaging 
* address, which I have so often recommended to you* but 
descend still lower, to your dress, cleanliness, and care of 
your person. 

When you come to Paris you must take care to be 
extremely well dressed, that is, as the fashionable people 
are; this does by no means consist in the finery, but in 
the taste, fitness, and manner of wearing your clothes. In 
your person you must be accurately clean; and your teeth, 
hands, and nails should be superlatively so: a dirty mouth 
has real ill consequences to the owner, for it infallibly 
causes the decay, as well as the intolerable pain, of the 
teeth; and it is very offensive to his acquaintance. I 
insist, therefore, that you wash your teeth the first thing 
you do every morning, with a soft sponge and warm 
water, for four or five minutes ; and then wash your mouth 
five or six times. Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, 
and illiberal, than dirty hands, and ugly, uneven, and 
ragged nails: I do not suspect you of that shocking, 



LOKD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 79 

awkward trick, of biting yours; but that is not enough; 
you must keep the ends of them smooth and clean, not 
tipped with black, as the ordinary people's always are. 
The ends of your nails should be small segments of 
circles, which, by a very little care in the cutting, they 
are very easily brought to; every time that you wipe your 
hands, rub the skin round your nails backwards, that it 
may not grow up, and shorten your nails too much. The 
cleanliness of the rest of your person, which, by the way, 
will conduce greatly to your health, I refer from time to 
time to the bath. My mentioning these particulars arises 
(I freely own) from some suspicion that the hints are not 
unnecessary; for when you were a schoolboy, you were 
slovenly and dirty, above your fellows. I must add 
another caution, which is, that upon no account whatever 
you put your fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in 
your nose or ears. It is the most shocking, nasty, vulgar 
rudeness that can be offered to company; it disgusts one, 
it turns one's stomach. Wash your ears well every 
morning, and blow your nose with your handkerchief 
whenever you have occasion. There should be in the 
least as well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, good 
manners. Sense will teach you some, observation others: 
attend carefully to the manners, the diction, the motions, 
of people of the first fashion, and form your own upon 
them. On the other hand, observe a little those of the 
vulgar, in order to avoid them: for though the things 
which they say or do may be the same, the manner is 
always totally different: and in that, and nothing else, 
consists the characteristic of a man of fashion. The 
lowest peasant speaks, moves, dresses, eats, and drinks, as 



80 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

much as a man of the first fashion, but does them all quite 
differently; so that by doing and saying most things in a 
manner opposite to that of the vulgar, you have a great 
chance of doing and saying them right. There are 
gradations in awkwardness and vulgarism, as there are 
in everything else. 

Having said all this, I cannot help reflecting what a 
formal, dull fellow, or a cloistered pedant, would say, if 
they were to see this letter: they would look upon it with 
the utmost contempt, and say, that surely a father might 
find much better topics for advice to a son. I would 
admit it if I had given you, or that you were capable of 
receiving, no better; but if sufficient pains had been taken 
to form your heart and improve your mind, and, as I 
hope, not without success, I will tell those solid Gentle- 
men that all these trifling things, as they think them, 
collectively form that pleasing, indescribable something 
which they are utter strangers to both in themselves 
and others. The word aimable is not known in their 
language, or the thing in their manners. Great usage 
of the world, great attention, and a great desire of 
pleasing, can alone give it; and it is no trifle. It is 
from old people's looking upon these things as trifles, 
or not thinking of them at all, that so many young 
people are so awkward, and so ill-bred. Their parents* 
often careless and unmindful of them, give them only 
the common run of education, as school, university, and 
then traveling; without examining, and very often with- 
out being able to judge if they did examine, what 
progress they make in any one of these stages. Then 
they carelessly comfort themselves, and say that their sons 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 81 

will do like other people's sons; and so they do,that is, 
commonly very ill. They correct none of the childish, 
nasty tricks, which they get at school; nor the illiberal 
manners which they contract at the university; nor the 
frivolous and superficial pertness which is commonly all 
that they acquire by their travels. As they do not tell 
them of these things, nobody else can; so they go on in 
the practice of them, without ever hearing or knowing 
that they are unbecoming, indecent, and shocking. For, 
as I have often formerly observed to you, nobody but a 
father can take the liberty to reprove a young fellow 
grown up for those kinds of inaccuracies and improprieties 
of behavior. The most intimate friendship, unassisted by 
the paternal superiority, will not authorize it. I may 
truly say, therefore, that you are happy in having me for 
a sincere, friendly, and quick-sighted monitor. Nothing 
will escape me; I shall pry for your defects, in order to 
correct them, as curiously as I shall seek for your per- 
fections, in order to applaud and reward them; with this 
difference only, that I shall publicly mention the latter, 
and never hint at the former, but in a letter to, or in 
conversation alone with, you. I will never put you out of 
countenance before company; and I hope you will never 
give me reason to be out of countenance for you, as any 
one of the above-mentioned defects would make me. 



LETTEE XXXVIII. 

My DEAR FRIEND, London, Jan. the 28th, 1751. 

All gentlemen, and all men of business, write their 
names always in the same way, that their signature may 



82 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

be so well known as not to be easily counterfeited; and 
they generally sign in rather a larger character than their 
common hand. I do not desire that you should write the 
labored, stiff character of a writing-master: a man of 
business must write quick and well, and that depends 
singly upon use. You will say, it may be, that when you 
write so very ill, it is because you are in a hurry: to 
which I answer, Why are you ever in a hurry ? a man of 
sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry, 
because he knows, that whatever he does in a hurry he 
must necessarily do very ill. He may be in haste to 
dispatch an affair, but he will take care not to let that 
haste hinder his doing it well. Little minds are in a 
hurry, when the object proves (as it commonly does) too 
big for them; they run, they hare, they puzzle, confound, 
and perplex themselves; they want to do everything at 
once, and never do it at all. But a man of sense takes 
the time necessary for doing the thing he is about, well; 
and his haste to dispatch a business, only appears by the 
continuity of his application to it: he pursues it with a 
cool steadiness, and finishes it before he begins any other. 
I own your time is much taken up, and you have a great 
many different things to do; but remember that you had 
much better do half of them well, and leave the other 
half undone, than do them all indifferently. Consider, 
that if your very bad writing could furnish me with 
matter of ridicule, what will it not do to others, who do 
not view you in that partial light that I do. There was 
a Pope, I think it was Pope Chigi, who was justly 
ridiculed for his attention to little things, and his in- 
ability in great ones; and therefore he was called great in 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 83 

little and little in great things. Why? Because he 
attended to little things, when he had great ones to do. 
At this particular period of your life, and at the place 
you are now in, you have only little things to do; and you 
should make it habitual to you to do them well, that they 
may require no attention from you when you have, as I 
hope you will have, greater things to mind. Make a good 
handwriting familiar to you now, that you may hereafter 
have nothing but your matter to think of, when you have 
occasion to write to Kings and Ministers. Dance, dress, 
present yourself habitually well now, that you may have 
none of those little tilings to think of hereafter, and 
which will be all necessary to be done well occasionally, 
when you will have greater things to do. 

Take care to make as many personal friends, and as few 
personal enemies, as possible. I do not mean, by personal 
friends, intimate and confidential friends, of which no man 
can hope to have half-a-dozen in the whole course of his 
life, but I mean friends in the common acceptation of the 
word, that is, people who speak well of you, and who 
would rather do you good than harm, consistently with 
their own interest, and no further. Upon the whole, I 
recommend to you again and again the graces. Adieu, 
my dear child. 

LETTEE XXXIX. 

MY DEAR FRIEXD, London, May the 6th, 1751. 

The best authors are always the severest critics of 
their own works; they revise, correct, file, and polish 
them, till they think they have brought them to perfec- 



84 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

tion. Considering you as my work, I do not look upon 
myself as a bad author, and am therefore a severe critic. 
I examine narrowly into the least inaccuracy or inele- 
gancy, in order to correct, not to expose them, and that 
the work may be perfect at last. You are, I know, 
exceedingly improved in your air, address, and manners, 
since you have been at Paris; but still there is, I believe, 
room for further improvement, before you come to that 
perfection which I have set my heart upon seeing you 
arrive at: and till that moment I must continue filing and 
polishing. If it is a quick and hasty manner of speaking 
that people mistake, for decided and off-hand, prevent 
their mistakes for the future, by speaking more deliber- 
ately, and taking a softer tone of voice: as in this case 
you are free from the guilt, be free from the suspicion, too. 
Few people have penetration enough to discover, attention 
enough to observe, or even concern enough to examine, 
beyond the exterior; they take their notions from the 
surface, and go no deeper; they commend, as the gentlest 
and best-natured man in the world, that man who has the 
most engaging exterior manner, though possibly they have 
been but once in his company. An air, a tone of voice, a 
composure of countenance to mildness and softness, which 
are all easily acquired, do the business; and without 
further examination, and possibly with the contrary 
qualities, that man is reckoned the gentlest, the most 
modest, and the best-natured man alive. Happy the man 
who, with a certain fund of parts and knowledge, gets 
acquainted with the world early enough to make it his 
bubble, at an age when most people are the bubbles of the 
world ! for that is the common case of youth. They 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 85 

grow wiser when it is too late: and, ashamed and vexed 
at having been bubbles so long, too often turn knaves 
at last. Do not therefore trust to appearances yourself; 
you may be sure that nine in ten of mankind do, 
and ever will, trust to them. I am by no means 
blamable in desiring to have other people's good word, 
good will, and affection, if I do not mean to abuse 
them. Your heart, I know, is good, your sense is sound, 
and your knowledge extensive. What then remains for 
you to do? Nothing, but to adorn those fundamental 
qualifications with such engaging and captivating man- 
ners, softness, and gentleness, as will endear you to those 
who are able to judge of your real merit. I do not mean 
by this to recommend to you the insipid softness of a 
gentle fool: no, assert your own opinion, oppose other 
people's when wrong; but let your manner, your air, your 
terms, and your tone of voice, be soft and gentle, and that 
easily and naturally, not affectedly. Use palliatives when 
you contradict; such as I may be mistaken, I am not sure, 
but I believe, I should rather think, etc. Finish any argu- 
ment or dispute with some little good-humored pleasantry, 
to show that you are neither hurt yourself, nor meant to 
hurt your antagonist; for an argument, kept up a good 
while, often occasions a temporary alienation on each side. 
Pray observe particularly, in those French people who are 
distinguished by that character, that gentleness of habit 
and manners, which they talk of so much, and value so 
justly; see in what it consists; in mere trifles, and most 
easy to be acquired, where the heart is really good. 
Imitate, copy it, till it becomes habitual and easy to you. 



86 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 



LETTEE XL. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Greenwich, June the 13th, 1751. 

The proprieties are a most necessary part of the knowl- 
edge of the world. They consist in the relations of 
persons, things, time, and place ; good sense points them 
out, good company perfects them (supposing always an 
attention and a desire to please), and good policy recom- 
mends them. 

Were you to converse with a King, you ought to be as 
easy and unembarrassed as with your own servant : but 
yet every look, word, and action should imply the utmost 
respect. What would be proper and well-bred with 
others, much your superiors, would be absurd and ill-bred 
with one so very much so. You must wait till you are 
spoken to ; you must receive, not give, the subject of 
conversation ; and you must even take care that the given 
subject of such conversation does not lead you into any 
impropriety. 

In mixed companies with your equals (for in mixed 
companies all people are to a certain degree equal) 
greater ease and liberty are allowed ; but they, too, have 
their bounds within propriety. There is a social respect 
necessary: you may start your own subject of conversation 
with modesty, taking great care, however, never to talk of 
the gallows in the house of one that has been hanged. 
Your words, gestures, and attitudes have a greater degree 
of latitude, though by no means an unbounded one. 



LOKD CHESTEKFIELD'S LETTERS. 87 

That easiness of carriage and behavior, which is exceed- 
ingly engaging, widely differs from negligence and 
inattention, and by no means implies that one may do 
whatever one pleases; it only means that one is not to be 
stiff, formal, embarrassed, disconcerted, and ashamed, like 
country bumpkins, and people who have never been in 
good company; but it requires great attention to, and a 
scrupulous observation of, the proprieties; whatever one 
ought to do is to be done with ease and unconcern. In 
mixed companies, also, different ages and sexes are to be 
differently addressed. You would not talk of your 
pleasures to men of a certain age, gravity, and dignity; 
they justly expect, from young people, a degree of defer- 
ence and regard. You should be full as easy with them 
as with people of your own years: but your manner must 
be different; more respect must be implied; and it is not 
amiss to insinuate, that from them you expect to learn. 
It flatters and comforts age, for not being able to take a 
part in the joy and titter of youth. 

Another important point of the proprieties, seldom 
enough attended to, is, not to run your own present 
humor and disposition indiscriminately against every- 
body: but to observe, conform to, and adopt, theirs. For 
example; if you happened to be in high good-humor and 
a flow of spirits, would you go and sing a rollicking song, 
or cut a caper, to la Marechale de Coigny, the Pope's 
Nuncio, or Abbe Sallier, or to any person of natural 
gravity and melancholy, or who at that time should be in 
grief? I believe not: as, on the other hand, I suppose 
that if you were in low spirits, or real grief, you would 
not choose to bewail your situation with la petite Blot. 



88 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

If you cannot command your present humor and disposi- 
tion, single out those to converse with, who happen to be 
in the humor nearest to your own. 

Loud laughter is extremely inconsistent with the pro- 
prieties, as it is only the illiberal and noisy testimony of 
the joy of the mob, at some very silly thing. A gentle- 
man is often seen, but very seldom heard, to laugh. 
Nothing is more contrary to the proprieties than horse- 
play, or rough play of any kind whatever, and has often 
very serious, sometimes very fatal, consequences. Romp- 
ing, struggling, throwing things at one another's head, 
are the becoming pleasantries of the mob, but degrade a 
gentleman; the sport of the hand, the sport of the boor, 
is a very true saying, among the few true sayings of the 
Italians. 

Peremptoriness and decision in young people is contrary 
to the proprieties: they should seem to assert, and always 
use some softening, mitigating expression; such as if I 
may be permitted to say, I should be inclined to think, if 
I might explain myself, which softens the manner, with- 
out giving up, or even weakening, the thing. People of 
more age and experience expect and are entitled to that 
degree of deference. 

There is a propriety also with regard to people of the 
lowest degree; a gentleman observes it with his footman, 
even with the beggar in the street. He considers them as 
objects of compassion, not of insult; he speaks to neither 
bluntly, but corrects the one coolly, and refuses the other 
with humanity. There is no one occasion in the world, 
in which bluntness is becoming a gentleman. In short, 
the proprieties are another word for manners, and extend 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 89 

to every part of life. The Graces should attend in order 
to complete them; the Graces enable us to do, genteelly 
and pleasingly, what the proprieties require to be done 
at all. The latter are an obligation upon every man; the 
former are an infinite advantage and ornament to any 
man. May you unite both! 



LETTEE XLI. 

My DEAR FRIEND, London, June 24th, 1751. 

As I open myself, without the least reserve, whenever 
I think that my doing so can be of any use to you, I will 
give you a short account of myself when I first came into 
the world, which was at the age you are of now, so that 
(by the way) you have got the start of me in that impor- 
tant article by two or three years at least. At nineteen, I 
left the university of Cambridge, where I was an absolute 
pedant : when I talked my best, I quoted Horace ; when 
I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial ; and when I 
had a mind to be a fine gentlemen, I talked Ovid. I was 
convinced that none but the ancients had common sense ; 
that the Classics contained everything that was either 
necessary, useful, or ornamental to men ; and I was not 
without thoughts of wearing the dress of the Romans, 
instead of the vulgar and illiberal dress of the moderns. 
With these excellent notions, I went first to The Hague, 
where, by the help of several letters of recommendation, 
I was soon introduced into all the best company ; and 
w^here I very soon discovered that I was totally mistaken 
in almost every one notion I had entertained. Fortu- 



90 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

nately, I had a strong desire to please (the mixed result 
of good nature and a vanity by no means blamable), and 
was sensible that I had nothing but the desire. I 
therefore resolved, if possible, to acquire the means, too. 
I studied attentively and minutely the dress, the air, the 
manner, the address, and the turn of conversation of all 
those whom I found to be the people in fashion, and 
most generally allowed to please. I imitated them as 
well as I could ; if I heard that one man was reckoned 
remarkably genteel, I carefully watched his dress, motions, 
and attitudes, and formed my own upon them. When 
I heard of another, whose conversation was agreeable and 
engaging, I listened and attended to the turn of it. I 
addressed myself, though awkwardly, to all the most 
fashionable, fine ladies ; confessed, and laughed with them 
at my own awkwardness and rawness, recommending 
myself as an object for them to try their skill in forming. 
By these means, and with a passionate desire of pleasing 
everybody, I came by degrees to please some. Does not 
good nature incline us to please all those we converse 
with, of whatever rank or station they may be? And 
does not good sense and common observation show of 
what infinite use it is to please ? Oh ! but one may 
please by the good qualities of the heart, and the knowl- 
edge of the head, without that fashionable air, address, 
and manner, which is mere tinsel. I deny it. A man 
may be esteemed and respected, but I defy him to please 
without them. Moreover, at your age, I would not have 
contented myself with barely pleasing ; I wanted to shine, 
and to distinguish myself in the world as a man of fashion 
and gallantry, as well as business. And that ambition or 



LOED CHESTEKFIELD'S LETTERS. 91 

vanity, call it what you please, was a right one; it hurt 
nobody, and made me exert whatever talents I had 
It is the spring of a thousand right and good tilings. 
Whenever you find yourself engaged insensibly in favor 
of anybody, of no superior merits nor distinguished talents, 
examine, and see what it is that has made those impres- 
sions upon you: you will find it to be that gentleness of 
manners, that air and address, which I have so often 
recommended to you; and from thence draw this obvious 
conclusion, that what pleases you in them will please 
others in you; for we are all made of the same clay, 
though some of the lumps are a little finer, and some a 
little coarser; but, in general, the surest way to judge of 
others is to examine and analyze one's self thoroughly. 
When we meet I will assist you in that analysis, in which 
every man wants some assistance against his own self-love. 
Adieu. 



LETTER XLIL 

MY DEAR FRIEXD, Greenwich, July the 15th, 1751. 

To speak without a metaphor, I shall endeavor to 
assist your youth with all the experience that I have 
purchased, at the price of seven-and-fifty years. In order 
to this, frequent reproofs, corrections, and admonitions 
will be necessary; but then, I promise you, that they shall 
be in a gentle, friendly, and secret manner; they shall not 
put you out of countenance in company, nor out of humor 
when we are alone. I do not expect that, at nineteen, 
you should have that knowledge of the world, those 
manners, that dexterity, which few people have at nine- 



92 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

and-twenty. Two of the most intimate friends in the 
world can freely tell each other their faults, and even their 
crimes; but cannot possibly tell each other of certain 
little weaknesses, awkwardnesses, and blindnesses of self- 
love; to authorize that unreserved freedom, the relation 
between us is absolutely necessary. For example: I had 
a very worthy friend, with whom I was intimate enough 
to tell him his faults; he had but few; I told him of them, 
he took it kindly of me, and corrected them. But, then, 
he had some weaknesses that I could never tell him of 
directly, and which he was so little sensible of himself, 
that hints of them were lost upon him. He had a scrag 
neck, of about a yard long; notwithstanding which, bags 
being in fashion, truly he would wear one to his wig, and 
did so; but never behind him, for, upon every motion of 
his head, his bag came forwards over one shoulder or the 
other. He took it into his head, too, that he must occa- 
sionally dance minuets, because other people did; and he 
did so, not only extremely ill, but so awkward, so dis- 
jointed, so slim, so meager, was his figure, that had he 
danced as well as ever Marcel did it would have been 
ridiculous in him to have danced at all. I hinted these 
things to him as plainly as friendship would allow, and to 
no purpose; but to have told him the whole, so as to cure 
him, I must have been his father. 

Pray remember to part with all your friends, and 
acquaintances, in such a manner, as may make them not 
only willing, but impatient, to see you there again. All 
people say pretty near the same things upon those occa- 
sions, it is the manner only that makes the difference ; and 
that difference is great. Avoid, as much as you can, 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 93 

charging yourself with commissions, in your return from 
hence to Paris: I know, by experience, that they are 
exceedingly troublesome, commonly expensive, and very 
seldom satisfactory at last to the persons who give them: 
some you cannot refuse, to people to whom you are 
obliged, and would oblige in your turn ; but as to common 
fiddle-faddle commissions, you may excuse yourself from 
them. 



LETTEE XLIII. 

MY DEAR FRIEXD, London, Dec. the 19th, 1751. 

You are now entered upon a scene of business, where 
I hope you will one day make a figure. Use does a great 
deal, but care and attention must be joined to it. The 
first thing necessary in writing letters of business, is 
extreme clearness and perspicuity; every paragraph should 
be so clear, and unambiguous, that the dullest fellow in 
the world may not be able to mistake it, nor obliged to 
read it twice in order to understand it. This necessary 
clearness implies a correctness, without excluding an ele- 
gancy of style. Tropes, figures, antitheses, epigrams, etc., 
would be as misplaced, and as impertinent, in letters of 
business, as they are sometimes (if judiciously used) 
proper and pleasing in familiar letters, upon common and 
trite subjects. In business, an elegant simplicity, the re- 
sult of care not of labor, is required. Business must be 
well, not affectedly, dressed, but by no means negligently. 
Let your first attention be to clearness, and read every 
paragraph after you have written it, in the critical view 



94 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

of discovering whether it is possible that any one man can 
mistake the true sense of it ; and correct it accordingly. 

Our pronouns and relatives often create obscurity or 
ambiguity ; be therefore exceedingly attentive to them, 
and take care to mark out with precision their particular 
relations. For example : Mr. Johnson acquainted me, 
that he had seen Mr. Smith, who had promised him to 
speak to Mr. Clarke, to return him (Mr. Johnson) those 
papers, which he (Mr. Smith) had left some time ago with 
him (Mr. Clarke): it is better to repeat a name, though 
unnecessary, ten times, than to have the person mistaken 
once. Who, you know, is singly relative to persons, and 
cannot be applied to things ; which, and that, are chiefly 
relative to things, but not absolutely exclusive of persons; 
for one may say, the man that robbed or killed such-a-one; 
but it is much better to say, the man who robbed or killed. 
One never says, the man or the woman which. Which and 
that, though chiefly relative to things, cannot be always 
used indifferently as to things ; and the euphony must 
sometimes determine their place. For instance; The letter 
ivhich I received from you, which you referred to in your 
last, which came by Lord Albemarle's messenger, and ivhich 
I showed to such-a-one ; I would change it thus — The 
letter that I received from you, ivhich you referred to in 
your last, that came by Lord Albemarle's messenger, and 
ivhich I showed to such-a-one. 

Business does not exclude (as possibly you wish it did) 
the usual terms of politeness and good breeding; but, on 
the contrary, strictly requires them : such as, / havt the 
honor to acquaint your Lordship; Permit me to assure 
you ; If I may be allowed to give my opinion, etc. For the 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 95 

Minister abroad, who writes to the Minister at home, writes 
to his superior; possibly to his patron, or at least to one 
who he desires should be so. 

Letters of business will not only admit of, but be the 
better for, certain graces : but then they must be scattered 
with a sparing and a skilful hand ; they must fit their 
place exactly. They must decently adorn without encum- 
bering, and modestly shine without glaring. But as this 
is the utmost degree of perfection in letters of business, 
I would not advise you to attempt those embellishments 
till you have first laid your foundation well. 

Carefully avoid all Greek or Latin quotations : and 
bring no precedents from the virtuous Spartans, the polite 
Athenians, and the brave Romans. Leave all that to futile 
pedants. No flourishes, no declamation. But (I repeat 
it again) there is an elegant simplicity and dignity of style 
absolutely necessary for good letters of business; attend to 
that carefully. Let your periods be harmonious, without 
seeming to be labored ; and let them not be too long, for 
that always occasions a degree of obscurity. I should not 
mention correct orthography, but that you very often fail 
in that particular, which will bring ridicule upon you; for 
no man is allowed to spell ill. I wish, too, that your hand- 
writing were much better: and I cannot conceive why it 
is not, since every man may certainly write whatever hand 
he pleases. Neatness in folding up, sealing, and direct- 
ing your packets, is by no means to be neglected, though 
I dare say you think it is. But there is something in the 
exterior, even of a packet, that may please or displease; 
and consequently worth some attention. 



96 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

You say that your time is very well employed, and so 
it is, though as yet only in the outlines and first routine 
of business. They are previously necessary to be known; 
they smooth the way for parts and dexterity. Business 
requires no conjuration nor supernatural talents, as people 
unacquainted with it are apt to think. Method, diligence, 
and discretion will carry a man of good strong common 
sense much higher than the finest parts without them can 
do. Equal to business, not above it, is the true character 
of a man of business: but then it implies ready attention, 
and no absences ; and a flexibility and versatility of atten- 
tion from one object to another, without being engrossed 
by any one. 

Be upon your guard against the pedantry and affecta- 
tion of business, which young people are apt to fall into 
from the pride of being concerned in it young. They look 
thoughtful, complain of the weight of business, throw out 
mysterious hints, and seem big with secrets which they 
do not know. Do you, on the contrary, never talk of 
business, but to those with whom you are to transact it. 
Adieu. 



LETTER XLIV. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, London, February the 14th, 1752. 

In a month's time, I believe, I shall have the pleasure 
of sending you, and you will have the pleasure of reading, 
a work of Lord Bolingbroke's, in two volumes octavo, 
upon the use of History. It is hard to determine whether 
this Avork will instruct or please most: the most material 
historical facts, from the great era of the treaty of Mun- 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 97 

ster, are touched upon, accompanied by the most solid 
reflections, and adorned by all that elegancy of style, 
which was peculiar to himself, and in which, if Cicero 
equals, he certainly does not exceed him; but every 
other writer falls short of him. I would advise you 
almost to get this book by heart. I think you have a 
turn to history, you love it, and have a memory to retain 
it; this book will teach you the proper use of it. Some 
people load their memories, indiscriminately, with histori- 
cal facts, as others do their stomachs with food; and bring 
out the one or the other entirely crude and undigested. 

Adieu, child. Take care of your health; there are no 
pleasures without it. 

LETTEE XLV. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, London, March the 5th, 1752. 

You have not the least notion of any care of your 
health: but, though I would not have you be a valetudi- 
narian, I must tell yoa, that the best and most robust 
health requires some degree of attention to preserve it. 
Young fellows, thinking they have so much health and 
time before them, are very apt to neglect or lavish both, 
and beggar themselves before they are aware: whereas a 
prudent economy in both, would make them rich indeed; 
and so far from breaking in upon their pleasures, would 
improve and almost perpetuate them. Be you wiser; and, 
before it is too late, manage both with care and frugality; 
and lay out neither, but upon good interest and security. 
You have, it is true, a great deal of time before you; but, 
in this period of your life, one hour usefully employed may 



98 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

be worth more than four-and-twenty hereafter; a minute is 
precious to you now, whole days may possibly not be so 
forty years hence. Whatever time you allow or can 
snatch for serious reading (I say snatch, because company, 
and the knowledge of the world, is now your chief 
object), employ it in the reading of some one book, and 
that a good one, till you have finished it: and do not 
distract your mind with various matters at the same time. 

Whatever business you have, do it the first moment you 
can; never by halves, but finish it without interruption, if 
possible. The most convenient season for business is the 
first; but study and business, in some measure, point out 
their own times to a man of sense; time is much oftener 
squandered away in the wrong choice and improper 
methods of amusement and pleasures. 

Many people think that they are in pleasures, provided 
they are neither in study nor in business. Nothing like it; 
they are doing nothing, and might just as well be asleep. 
They contract habitudes from laziness, and they only 
frequent those places where they are free from all 
restraints and attentions. Be upon your guard against 
this idle profusion of time: and let every place you go to 
be either the scene of quick and lively pleasures, or the 
school of your improvements: let every company you go 
into, either gratify your senses, extend your knowledge, 
or refine your manners. 

Sloth, indolence, and effeminacy are pernicious and 
unbecoming a young fellow; let them be your resource 
forty years hence at soonest. Determine, at all events 
and however disagreeable it may be to you in some 
respects, and for some time, to keep the most distinguished 



LOED CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 99 

and fashionable company of the place you are at, either 
for their rank, or for their learning. This gives you 
credentials to the best companies, wherever you go after- 
wards. Pray, therefore, no indolence, no laziness; but 
employ every minute of your life in active pleasures or 
useful employments. And so we bid you heartily good- 
night. 

LETTEE XL VI. 
MY DEAR FRIEXD, London, April the 13th, 1752. 

Voltaire sent me from Berlin his History of the Age 
of Louis XIV. It came at a very proper time; Lord 
Bolingbroke had just taught me how History should be 
read; Voltaire shows me how it should be written. I am 
sensible that it will meet with almost as many critics as 
readers. Voltaire must be criticized: besides, every man's 
favorite is attacked; for every prejudice is exposed, and 
our prejudices are our mistresses: reason is at best our 
wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded. It is 
the history of the human understanding written by a man 
of parts, for the use of men of parts. Weak minds will not 
like it, even though they do not understand it; which is 
commonly the measure of their admiration. Dull ones will 
want those minute and uninteresting details, with which 
most other histories are encumbered. He tells me all I 
want to know, and nothing more. His reflections are short, 
just, and produce others in his readers. Free from 
religious, philosophical, political, and national prejudices, 
beyond any historian I ever met with, he relates all those 
matters as truly and as impartially as certain regards, which 



100 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

must always be to some degree observed, will allow him; 
for one sees plainly, that he often says much less than he 
would say, if he might. He hath made me much better 
acquainted with the times of Louis XIV. than the innumer- 
able volumes which I had read could do; and hath sug- 
gested this reflection to me, which I had never made before 
— His vanity, not his knowledge, made him encourage all, 
and introduce many arts and sciences in his country. He 
opened in a manner the human understanding in France, 
and brought it to its utmost perfection; his age equaled in 
all, and greatly exceeded in many things (pardon me, 
pedants !) the Augustan. This was great and rapid; but 
still it might be done, by the encouragement, the applause, 
and the rewards of a vain, liberal, and magnificent prince. 
What is much more surprising, is, that he stopped the 
operations of the human mind, just where he pleased; and 
seemed to say, "thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." 
For, a bigot to his religion, and jealous of his power, free 
and rational thoughts upon either never entered into a 
French head during his reign; and the greatest geniuses 
that ever any age produced never entertained a doubt of 
the divine right of Kings, or the infallibility of the Church. 
Poets, Orators, and Philosophers, ignorant of their natural 
rights, cherished their chains; and blind active faith 
triumphed, in those great minds, over silent and passive 
reason. The reverse of this seems now to be the case in 
France; reason opens itself; fancy and invention fade and 
decline. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 101 



LETTER XL VII. 

My DEAR FRIEND, London, April the 30th, 1752. 

To be well-bred is, in my opinion, a very just and 
happy expression, for having address, manners, and for 
knowing how to behave properly in all companies; and it 
implies, very truly, that a man that hath not these accom- 
plishments is not of the world. Without them, the best 
parts are inefficient, civility is absurd, and freedom offen- 
sive. A learned parson, rusting in his study at Oxford or 
Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of 
man; will profoundly analyse the head, the heart, the 
reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, 
and all those sub-divisions of we know not what; and yet, 
unfortunately, he knows nothing of man: for he hath not 
lived with him; and is ignorant of all the various modes, 
habits, prejudices, and tastes, that always influence, and 
often determine him. He views man as he does colors in 
Sir Isaac Newton's prism, where only the capital ones are 
seen; but an experienced dyer knows all their various 
shades and gradations, together with the results of their 
several mixtures. Few men are of one plain, decided 
color; most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as 
much, from different situations, as changeable silks do 
from different lights. The man who is well-bred knows 
all this from his own experience and observation: the 
conceited, cloistered philosopher knows nothing of it from 
his own theory; his practice is absurd and improper; 



102 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

and he acts as awkwardly as a man would dance, who 
had never seen others dance, nor learned of a dancing- 
master; but who had only studied the notes by which 
dances are now pricked down, as well as tunes. Observe 
and imitate, then, the address, the arts, and the manners 
of those who are well-bred; see by what methods they first 
make, and afterwards improve, impressions in their favor. 
This knowledge of the world teaches us more particu- 
larly two things, both which are of infinite consequence, 
and to neither of which nature inclines us; I mean, the 
command of our temper and of our countenance. A man 
who is unaccustomed to society is inflamed with anger, or 
annihilated with shame, at every disagreeable incident: 
the one makes him act and talk like a madman, the other 
makes him look like a fool. But a man of the world 
seems not to understand what he cannot or ought not 
to resent. If he makes a slip himself, he recovers it 
by his coolness, instead of plunging deeper by his con- 
fusion, like a stumbling horse. He is firm, but gen- 
tle; and practices that most excellent maxim, gentle in 
manner, strong in truth. The other has the countenance 
unbent and the thoughts guarded. People unused to the 
world have babbling countenances; and are unskilful 
enough to show what they have sense enough not to tell. 
Adieu ! 

LETTEE XLVIIL 

My DEAR FRIEND, London, May the 11th, 175:2. 

Another thing, which I most earnestly recommend to 
you, not only in Germany, but in every part of the world, 
where you may ever be, is real attention to whomever you 



LOED CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 103 • 

speak to, or to whoever speaks to you. There is nothing 
so brutally shocking, nor so little forgiven, as a seeming 
inattention to the person who is speaking to you; and I 
have known many a man knocked down, for (in my opinion) 
a much slighter provocation, than that shocking inattention 
which I mean. I have seen many people, who while you 
are speaking to them, instead of looking at, and attending 
to, you, fix their ej^es upon the ceiling, or some other part 
of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, 
twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers 
a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing 
is so offensively ill-bred; it is an explicit declaration on 
your part, that every, the most trifling object, deserves 
your attention more than all that can be said by the person 
who is speaking to you. Judge of the sentiments of 
hatred and resentment, which such treatment must excite, 
in every breast where any degree of self-love dwells; and 
I am sure, I never yet met with that breast where there 
was not a great deal. I repeat it again and again (for it 
is highly necessary for you to remember it), that sort of 
vanity and self-love is inseparable from human nature, 
whatever may be its rank or condition; even your footman 
will sooner forget and forgive a beating, than any manifest 
mark of slight and contempt. Be therefore, I beg of you 
not only really, but seemingly and manifestly, attentive to 
whoever speaks to you. 

I am very sure, at least I hope, that you will never 
make use of a silly expression, which is the favorite 
expression, and the absurd excuse of all fools and block- 
heads; / cannot do such a thing : a thing by no means 
either morally or physically impossible. I cannot attend 



104 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

long together to the same thing, says one fool: that is, he 
is such a fool that he will not. I remember a very 
awkward fellow, who did not know what to do with his 
sword, and who always took it off before dinner, saying, 
that he could not possibly dine with his sword on; upon 
which I could not help telling him that I really believed 
he could, without any probable danger either to himself 
or others. It is a shame and an absurdity, for any man 
to say, that he cannot do all those things which are 
commonly done by all the rest of mankind. 

Another thing, that I must earnestly warn you against, 
is laziness; by which more people have lost the fruit of 
their travels, than (perhaps) by any other thing. Pray 
be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see 
things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you 
stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, 
see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many 
people, and get into as many houses, as ever you can. 

I recommend to you likewise, though probably you have 
thought of if yourself, to carry in your pocket a map of 
Germany, in which the post roads are marked; and also 
some fehort book of travels through Germany. The former 
will help to imprint in your memory situations and dis- 
tances; and the latter will point out many things for you 
to see, that might otherwise possibly escape you; and 
which, though they may in themselves be of little conse- 
quence, you would regret not having seen, after having 
been at the places where they were. 

Thus warned and provided for your journey, God speed 
you. Adieu. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 105 



LETTEE XLIX. 

My DEAR FrLEXD, London, May the 31st, 1752. 

As the most tumultuous life, whether of business or 
pleasure, leaves some vacant moments every day, in which 
a book is the refuge of a rational being, I mean now to 
point out to you the method of employing those moments 
(which will and ought to be but few) in the most advan- 
tageous manner. Throw away none of your time upon 
those trivial futile books, published by idle or necessitous 
authors, for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers: 
such sort of books swarm and buzz about one every day; 
flap them away, they have no sting. Have some one 
object for those leisure moments, and pursue that object 
invariably till you have attained it; and then take some 
other. For instance: considering your destination, I 
would advise you to single out the most remarkable and 
interesting era of modern history, and confine all your 
reading to that era. If you pitch upon the Treaty of 
Munster (and that is the proper period to begin with, in 
the course which I am now recommending), do not inter- 
rupt it by dipping and deviating into other books, unre- 
lated to it: but consult only the most authentic histories, 
letters, memoirs, and negotiations relative to that great 
transaction; reading and comparing them, with all that 
caution and distrust which Lord Bolingbroke recommends 
to you, in a better manner and in better words than I can. 
I do not mean that you should plod hours together in 
researches of this kind; no, you may employ your time 



106 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

more usefully; but I mean that you should make the most 
of the moments you do employ, by method, and the pur- 
suit of one single object, at a time; nor should I call it a 
digression from that object, if, when you meet with clash- 
ing and jarring pretentions of different princes to the 
same thing, you had immediate recourse to other books, 
in which those several pretensions were clearly stated; on 
the contrary, that is the only way of remembering those 
contested rights and claims. 

All that I have said may be reduced to these two or three 
plain principles: 1st, That you should now read very little, 
but converse a great deal; 2ndly, To read no useless, 
unprofitable books; and 3rclly, That those which you do 
read, may all tend to a certain object, and be relative to, 
and consequent of, each other. In this method, half- 
an-hour's reading, every day, will carry you a great way. 
People seldom know how to employ their time to the best 
advantage, till they have too little left to employ; but if, 
at your age, in the beginning of life, people would but 
consider the value of it, and put every moment to interest, 
it is incredible what an additional fund of knowledge and 
pleasure such an economy would bring in. I look back 
with regret upon that large sum of time, which, in my 
youth, I lavished away idly, without either improvement 
or pleasure. Take warning betimes, and enjoy every 
moment; pleasures do not commonly last so long as life, 
and therefore should not be neglected; and the longest 
life is too short for knowledge, consequently every 
moment is precious. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 107 



LETTEE L. 

My DEAR FRIEND, London, September the 29th, 1752. 

There is nothing so necessary, but at the same time 
there is nothing more difficult (I know it by experience), 
for you young fellows, than to know how to behave your- 
selves prudently towards those whom you do not like. 
Your passions are warm, and your heads are light; you 
hate all those who oppose your views, either of ambition 
or love; and a rival in either is almost a synonymous term 
for an enemy. Whenever you meet such a man, you are 
awkwardly cold to him, at best; but often rude, and always 
desirous to give him some indirect slap. This is unreason- 
able; for one man has as good a right to pursue an 
employment, or a mistress, as another; but it is into the 
bargain, extremely imprudent; because you commonly 
defeat your own purpose by it, and while you are contend- 
ing with each other a third often prevails. I grant you, 
that the situation is irksome; a man cannot help thinking 
as he thinks, nor feeling what he feels; and it is a very 
tender and sore point to be thwarted and counter-worked 
in one's pursuits at Court, or with a mistress: but prudence 
and abilities must check the effects, though they cannot 
remove the cause. Both the pretenders make themselves 
disagreeable to their mistress, when they spoil the company 
by their pouting or their sparring: whereas, if one of them 
has command enough over himself (whatever he may feel 
inwardly) to be cheerful, gay, and easily and unaffectedly 
civil to the other, as if there were no manner of competi- 



108 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

tion between them, the lady will certainly like him the 
best, and his rival will be ten times more humbled and 
discouraged; for he will look upon such a behavior as a 
proof of the triumph and security of his rival; he will 
grow outrageous with the lady, and the warmth of his 
reproaches will probably bring on a quarrel between them. 
It is the same in business; where he who can command 
his temper and his countenance the best, will always have 
an infinite advantage over the other. This is what the 
French call an honorable and gallant course, to pique 
yourself upon showing particular civilities to a man, to 
whom lesser minds would in the same case show dislike, 
or perhaps rudeness. I will give you an instance of this 
in my own case; and pray remember it, whenever you 
come to be, as I hope you will, in a like situation. 

When I went to The Hague, in 1744, it was to engage 
the Dutch to come roundly into the war, and to stipulate 
their quotas of troops, etc.; your acquaintance, the Abbe 
de la Ville, was there on the part of France, to endeavor 
to hinder them from coming into the war at all. I was 
informed, and very sorry to hear it, that he had abilities, 
temper, and industry. We could not visit, our two 
masters being at war; but the first time I met him at a 
third place, I got somebody to present me to him; and I 
told him, that though we were to be national enemies, I 
flattered myself we might be, however, personal friends; 
with a good deal more of the same kind; which he re- 
turned in full as polite a manner. Two days afterwards 
I went, early in the morning, io solicit the Deputies of 
Amsterdam, where I found l'Abbe de la Ville, who had 
been beforehand with me; upon which I addressed myself 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 109 

to the Deputies, and said, smilingly, " Gentlemen, I am 
very sorry to find my enemy with you; I already know 
him well enough to know how formidable he is; the con- 
test is not equal, but I trust myself to your own interests 
as an offset to the ability of my enemy; and at least, if I 
have not had the first word to-day, I shall have the last." 
They smiled: the Abbe was pleased with the compliment, 
and the manner of it, stayed about a quarter of an hour, 
and then left me to my Deputies, with whom I continued 
upon the same tone, though in a very serious manner, and 
told them that I was only come to state their own true 
interests to them, plainly and simply, without any of 
those arts which it was very necessary for my friend to 
make use of to deceive them. I carried my point, and 
continued my intercourse with the Abbe; and by this easy 
and polite commerce with him, at third places, I often 
found means to fish out from him whereabouts he was. 

All acts of civility are, by common consent, understood 
to be no more than a conformity to custom, for the quiet 
and convenience of society, the harmony of which is not 
to be disturbed by private dislikes and jealousies. Only 
women and little minds pout and spar for the entertain- 
ment of the company that always laughs at, and never 
pities them. For my own part, though I would by no 
means give up any point to a competitor, yet I would 
pique myself upon showing him rather more civility than 
to another man. In the first place, this course infallibly 
makes all laughers of your side, which is a considerable 
party; and in the next place, it certainly pleases the 
object of the competition, be it either man or woman; who 
never fail to say, upon such an occasion, that they must 



110 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

oivn you have behaved yourself very handsomely in the 
whole affair. 

Nineteen fathers in twenty, and every mother, who had 
loved you half as well as I do, would have ruined you; 
whereas I always made you feel the weight of my author- 
ity, that you might one day know the force of my love. 
Now, I both hope and believe my advice will have the 
same weight with you from choice, that my authority had 
from necessity. My advice is just eight-ancl-thirty years 
older than your own, and consequently, I believe you 
think, rather better. As for your tender and pleasurable 
passions, manage them yourself ; but let me have the di- 
rection of all the others. Your ambition, your figure, and 
your fortune will, for some time at least, be rather safer 
in my keeping than in your own. Adieu. 



LETTER LI. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, London, May the 27th, 1753. 

I have this day been tired, jaded, nay, tormented, by 
the company of a most worthy, sensible, and learned man, 
a near relation of mine, who dined and passed the evening 
with me. This seems a paradox, but is a plain truth ; he 
has no knowledge of the world, no manners, no address; 
far from talking without book, as is commonly said of 
people who talk sillily, he only talks by book ; which, in 
general conversation, is ten times worse. He has formed 
in his own closet, from books, certain systems of every- 
thing, argues tenaciously upon those principles, and is both 
surprised and angry at whatever deviates from them. His 



LOKD CHESTEKEIELD'S LETTEES. Ill 

theories are good, but, unfortunately, are all impracticable. 
Why? Because he has only read, and not conversed. He 
is acquainted with books, and an absolute stranger to men. 
Laboring with his matter, he is delivered of it with pangs; 
he hesitates, stops in his utterance, and always expresses 
himself inelegantly. His actions are all ungraceful ; so 
that, with all his merit and knowledge, I would rather 
converse six hours with the most frivolous tittle-tattle 
woman, who knew something of the world, than with him. 
The preposterous notions of a systematical man, who does 
not know the world, tire the patience of a man who does. 
It would be endless to correct his mistakes, nor would he 
take it kindly; for he has considered everything deliber- 
ately, and is very sure that he is in the right. Impropriety 
is a characteristic, and a never-failing one, of these people. 
Regardless, because ignorant, of custom and manners, they 
violate them every moment. They often shock, though 
they never mean to offend ; never attending either to the 
general character, or the particular distinguishing circum- 
stances of the people to whom, or before whom, they talk: 
whereas the knowledge of the world teaches one that the 
very same things which are exceedingly right and proper 
in one company, time, and place, are exceedingly absurd 
in others. In short, a man who has great knowledge, from 
experience and observation of the characters, customs, and 
manners of mankind, is a being as different from, and as 
superior to, a man of mere book and systematical knowl- 
edge, as a well-managed horse is to an ass. Study there- 
fore, cultivate, and frequent, men and women ; not only 
in their outward, and consequently guarded, but in their 
interior, domestic, and consequently less disguised, char- 



112 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

acters, and manners. Take your notions of things, as by 
observation and experience you find they really are, and 
not as you read that they are or should be; for they never 
are quite what they should be. For this purpose do not 
content yourself with general and common acquaintance; 
but, wherever you can, establish yourself, with a kind of 
domestic familiarity, in good houses. For instance ; go 
again to Orli for two or three days. Go and stay two or 
three days at a time at Versailles, and improve and extend 
the acquaintance you have there. Be at home at St. Cloud; 
and whenever any private person of fashion invites you to 
pass a few days at his country-house, accept the invita- 
tion. This will necessarily give you a versatility of mind, 
and a facility to adopt various manners and customs; for 
everybody desires to please those in whose house they 
are ; and people are only to be pleased in their own way. 
Nothing is more engaging than a cheerful and easy con- 
formity to people's particular manners and habits. Ob- 
serve the shining part of every man of fashion, who is 
liked and esteemed; attend to, and imitate that particular 
accomplishment for which you hear him chiefly celebrated 
and distinguished; then collect those various parts, and 
make yourself a mosaic of the whole. No one body pos- 
sesses everything, and almost everybody possesses some 
one thing worthy of imitation : only choose your models 
well; and, in order to do so, choose by your ear more than 
by your eye. Adieu. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 113 



LETTEE LIL 

MY DEAR FRIEND, London, February 26th, 1754. 

Now, that you are soon to be a man of business, I 
heartily wish you would immediately begin to be a man 
of method, nothing contributing more to facilitate and 
dispatch business than method and order. Have order 
and method in your accounts, in your reading, in the allot- 
ment of your time, in short, in everything. You cannot 
conceive how much time you will save by it, nor how much 
better everything you do will be done. The Duke of 
Marlborough did by no means spend, but he slatterned 
himself into that immense debt, which is not yet near paid 
off. The hurry and confusion of the Duke of Newcastle 
do not proceed from his business, but from his want of 
method in it. Sir Robert Walpole, who had ten times the 
business to do, was never seen in a hurry, because he 
always did it with method. The head of a man who has 
business, and no method nor order, is properly a chaos. 
As you must be conscious that you are extremely negligent 
and slatternly, I hope you will resolve not to be so for the 
future. Prevail with yourself only to observe good method 
and order for one fortnight, and I will venture to assure 
you that you will never neglect them afterwards, you will 
find such conveniency and advantage arising from them. 
Method is the great advantage that lawyers have over 
other people in speaking in Parliament; for, as they must 
necessarily observe it in their pleadings in the Courts of 



114 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 

Justice, it becomes habitual to them everywhere else. 
Experience you cannot yet have, and therefore trust in 
the meantime to mine. I am an old traveler; am well 
acquainted with all the by, as well as the great, roads; I 
cannot misguide you from ignorance, and you are very sure 
I shall not from design. 

I can assure you that you will have no opportunity of 
subscribing yourself, my Excellency's, etc. Retirement 
and quiet were my choice some years ago, while I had all 
my senses, and health and spirits enough to carry on 
business; but now I have lost my hearing, and find my 
constitution declining daily, they are become my necessary 
and only refuge. I know myself (no common piece of 
knowledge, let me tell you), I know what I can, what I 
cannot, and consequently what I ought to do. I ought 
not, and therefore will not, return to business, when I am 
much less fit for it than I was when I quitted it. 
Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the 
gradations of their decay; and, too sanguinely hoping to 
shine on in their meridian, often set with contempt and 
ridicule. I retired in time, as Pope says, " Ere tittering 
youth shall shove you from the stage." My only remaining 
ambition is to be the Counsellor and Minister of your 
rising ambition. Let me see my own youth revived in 
you; let me be your Mentor, and, with your parts and 
knowledge, I promise you, you shall go far. You must 
bring, on your part, activity and attention, and I will 
point out to you the proper objects for them. I own I 
fear but one thing for you, and that is what one has 
generally the least reason to fear, from one of your age; 
I mean your laziness, which if you indulge, will make you 



LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 115 

stagnate in a contemptible obscurity all your life. It will 
hinder you from doing anything that will deserve to be 
written, or from writing anything that may deserve to be 
read; and yet one or other of these two objects should be 
at least aimed at by every rational being. I look upon 
indolence as a sort of suicide ; for the Man is effectually 
destroyed, though the appetites of the Brute may survive. 
Business by no means forbids pleasure; on the contrary, 
they reciprocally season each other; and I will venture to 
affirm, that no man enjoys either in perfection that does 
not join both. They whet the desire for each other. Use 
yourself therefore in time, to be alert and diligent in your 
little* concerns; never procrastinate, never put off till 
to-morrow what you can do to-day; and never do two 
things at a time; pursue your object, be it what it will, 
steadily and indefatigably; and let any difficulties (if 
surmountable) rather animate than slacken your endeavors. 
Perseverance has surprising effects. 

I wish you would accustom yourself to translate, every 
day, only three or four lines from any book, in any lan- 
guage, into the most correct and most elegant English that 
you can think of; you cannot imagine how it will insensi- 
bly form your style, and give you an habitual elegancy; it 
would not take a quarter of an hour in a day. This let- 
ter is so long, that it will hardly leave you that quarter 
of an hour, the day you receive it. So good-night. 



116 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. 



LETTEK Lin. 

My DEAR FRIEND, Blackheath, Sept. the 30th, 1763. 

The present inaction, I believe, gives you leisure 
enough for mental weariness, but it gives you time enough, 
too, for better things; I mean reading useful books; and, 
what is still more useful, conversing with yourself some 
part of every day. Lord Shaftesbury recommends self- 
conversation to all authors; and I would recommend it to 
all men; they would be the better for it. Some people 
have not time, and fewer have inclination, to enter into 
that conversation; nay, very many dread it, and fly to the 
most trifling dissipations, in order to avoid it; but if a 
man would allot half-an-hour every night for this self- 
conversation, and recapitulate with himself whatever he 
has done, right or wrong, in the course of the day, he 
would be both the better and the wiser for it. My deaf- 
ness gives me more than sufficient time for self-conversa- 
tion; and I have found great advantages from it. My 
brother, and Lady Stanhope, are at last finally parted. If 
he had had some of those self-conversations which I 
recommend, he would not, I believe, at past sixty, with a 
crazy, battered constitution, and deaf into the bargain, 
have married a young girl, just turned of twenty, full of 
health, and consequently of desires. But who takes 
warning by the fate of others? This, perhaps, proceeds 
from a negligence of self-conversation. God bless you ! 



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E. C. Willard, Prin. High School, 

Westerly, R.I. : Nearly every page 
bears the characteristic marks of the 
author, who easily leads to-day in 
mathematical book-making. 

P. T. Bugbee, Prin. Union School, 
Newark, N. Y. : It has stood the test 
of several years with us, and I consider 
it superior to any other Arithmetic of 
grammar grade which I have seen. 

G. S. Albee, Pres. State Normal 
School, Oshkosh, Wis. : The abun- 
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Edward Taylor, Supt. Schools, Vin- 
cennes, Ind. : It is sufficient to say 
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past, and always with entire satisfac- 
tion. 



GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, 

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HIGHER ENGLISH. 



A Handbook of Rhetorical Analysis. 

Studies in Style and Invention, designed to accompany the author's 
Practical Elements of Rhetoric. By John F. Genung, Ph.D., Pro- 
fessor of Rhetoric in Amherst College. 12mo. Cloth. xU + 306 pages. 
Mailing Price, $1.25 ; Introduction and Teachers' Price, $1.12. 

rpHIS handbook follows the general plan of the larger text-book, 
being designed to alternate with that from time to time, as 
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of Studies in Style and Studies in Invention, a series of selections 
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and oratory. 

Genung's Rhetoric, followed by the Khetorical Analysis, and this 
by Minto (see page 10), make a course that has been found emi- 
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Margaret E. Stratton, Prof, of 
Eng, and Rhetoric, Wellesley Col- 
lege : I find in the book just the kind 
of work I have tried to give my 
classes, and so arranged that even a 
dull student must become interested, 
and gain in the power of composition. 
I consider Prof. Genung's work in 
both his Rhetoric and Handbook a 
most valuable contribution to the 
study of English. 

J. H. Gilmore, Prof, of Rhetoric, 
Univ. of Rochester, N. Y.: This strikes 
me as a very significant attempt to 
open a road that college students espe- 
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The Analysis particularly pleases me, 
as affording a very natural and prac- 
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erature. The plan, contents, and 
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of rhetoric has tried to give his 
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satisfactory than those secured in 
more desultory ways. 

W. J. Rolfe, Editor of Shake- 
speare, etc. : It is the best thing in 
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John Seath, Inspector of High 
Schools, Ontario : It is the first 
good, systematic application of rhet- 
oric that I have seen. I recommend 
it heartily to teachers of English. It 
cannot but prove eminently useful. 

W. I. Thomas, Prof, of English, 
Oberlin College, Ohio : It was used 
last year, and gave great satisfaction. 
There is nothing else so good offered* 
(Oct. 30, 1890.) 



BOOK I. 40 cts. Introd. Book n. 60 cts. Introd. 

TARBELL'S 

LESSONS IN LANGUAGE. 

By H. S. TARBELL, Superintendent of Schools, Providence, R. I. 



Here is at last a series that harmonizes "language" and "grammar " and 
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Wl. E. Buck, Supt. Public Instruction, Manchester, N. H. : I am particularly well 
pleased with them. They insure better teaching, because most teachers will almost literally 
follow the text-book and Tarbell's Lessons have evidently been arranged with this fact 
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the pupil " to use his native tongue with readiness, clearness and accuracy in both its spoken 
and written forms." 

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N. Somerville, Supt. of Pub. Schools, Denison, Texas: Tarbell's Lessons in Language 
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child's varied field of knowledge. 



GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, 

Boston, New York, and Chicago. 



A REVOLUTION IN SCHOOL READING 

HAS BEEN WROUGHT BY THE USE OF THE 

Classics for Children. 

The books in this carefully edited series are widely used 
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DESIGN — 

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INDORSED BY- 

Teachers, Superintendents, Librarians, eminent Literary 
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STICKNEY'S READERS. 

Introductory to Classics for Children. By J. H. Stickney, author of The 
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CLASSICS FOR CHILDREN. 



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Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. 

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*Kingsley 's Water-Babies : A story for a Land Baby. 
*Ruskin 's King of the Golden River : A Legend of Stiria. 
*The Swiss Family Robinson, Abridged. 

Robinson Crusoe. Concluding with his departure from the island. 
*Kingsley's Greek Heroes. 

Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. " Meas. for Meas." omitted. 

Scott's Tales of a Grandfather. 
*Martineau's Peasant and Prince. 

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 

Scott's Lady of the Lake. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses. 

Tom Brown at Rugby. 

Church 's Stories of the Old World. 

Scott's Talisman. Complete. 

Scott's Quentin Durward. Slightly abridged. 

Irving' s Sketch Book. Six selections, including *• Rip Van Winkle.' 

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. 

Scott's Guy Mannering. Complete. 

Scott's Ivanhoe. Complete. Scott's Rob Roy. Complete. 

Johnson 's Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. 

Gulliver's Travels. The Voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag. 
^Plutarch's Lives. From Clough's Translation. 

Irving-Fiske's Washington and His Country. 

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. 
^Franklin : His Life by Himself. 

Selections from Ruskin. 
*Hale'$ Arabian Nights. Heroic Ballads. 

Grote and Segur's Two Great Retreats. 

Irving' s A Ih am bra. 

Scott's M arm ion. Scott's Old Mortality. 

Don Quixote [in press]. 



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Bancroft : A Method of English Composition 50 

Cook : Sidney's Defense of Poesy 80 

Shelley's Defense of Poetry 50 

The Art of Poetry 1.12 

Newman's Aristotle's Poetics 30 

Addison's Criticisms on Paradise Lost 00 

Bacon's Advancement of Learning 00 

Corson: Primer of English Verse 1.00 

Emery : Notes on English Literature 1.00 

English Literature Pamphlets : Ancient Mariner, .05 ; First Bunker 
Hill Address, .10 ; Essay on Lord Clive, .15 ; Second 
Essay on the Earl of Chatham, .15. 
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worth, I. and II. ; Coleridge and Burns ; Addison and 

Goldsmith # Each .15 

Fulton & Trueblood : Choice Readings, $1.50 ; Chart . . " . . 2.00 

College Critic's Tablet 60 

Garnett : English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria . . . 1.50 

Gayley : Classic Myths in English Literature 00 

Genung : Practical Elements of Rhetoric 1.25 

Handbook of Rhetorical Analysis 1.12 

Gummere : Handbook of Poetics 1.00 

Hudson : Harvard Edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works : — 

20 Vol. Edit. Cloth, retail, $25.00; Half-Calf, retail, 55.00 

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Maxcy : Tragedy of Hamlet 45 

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Characteristics of English Poets 1.50 

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Smith : Synopsis of English and American Literature . „ .80 

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AND OTHER VALUABLE WORKS. 

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CLASSICS FOR CH> 





Choice Literature ; Judicious Notes ; L 

Binding; Low Prices. Q Q22 208 238 



Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. 

* First Series: Supplementary to the Third Reader. 

* Second Series: Supplementary to the Fourth Reader. 
*/Esop f s Fables, with selections from Krilof and La Fontaine. 
*Kingsley 's Water-Babies : A story for a Land Baby. 
*Ruskin 's King of the Golden River : A Legend of Stiria. 
*The Swiss Family Robinson. Abridged. 

Robinson Crusoe. Concluding with his departure from the island. 
*Kingsley's Greek Heroes. 

Lamb 's Tales from Shakespeare. " Meas. for Meas." omitted. 

Scott's Tales of a Grandfather. 
*Martineau's Peasant and Prince. 

Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 

Scntt's Lady of the Lake. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

Lumb's Adventures of Ulysses. 

7c. Srov/n at Rugby. 

Ch arch's Stories of the Old World. 

Scott's Talisman. Complete. 

Scott's Quentin Durward. Slightly abridged. 

Irving' s Sketch Book. Six selections, including '-Rip Van Winkle. 

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. 

Scott's Guy Mannering. Complete. 

Scott's Ivanhoe. Complete. Scott's Rob Roy. Complete. 

Johnson 's Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. 

Gulliver's Travels. The Voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag. 
^Plutarch's Lives. From Clough's Translation. 

Irving-Fiske's Washington and His Country. 

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. 
*Franklin : His Life by Himself. 

Selections from Ruskin. 
* Hale's Arabian Nights. Heroic Ballads. 

Grote and Segur*s Two Great Retreats. 

Irving' s A/ham bra. 

Scott's M arm ion. Scott's Old Mortality. 

Don Quixote [in press]. 



I 



Starred books a> j illustrated. 



CINN & COMPANY, Publishers, 

BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO. 



